


this is what love looks like:

by hiuythn



Series: there, nestled against his pulse [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Accidental Marriage, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Denial of Feelings, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Established Relationship, Falling In Love, Fluff, Frottage, Guilt, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Insecurity, M/M, Mild Gore, Nightmares, Pining Lance (Voltron), Team as Family, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, but y'all knew that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-03 10:49:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 58,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21178187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiuythn/pseuds/hiuythn
Summary: Unlike Keith, Lance has to be dragged by his feet, bound and gagged, into this love. If there was a contest for the art of self-denial, he’d be the reigning champion.-Companion piece and sequel to'there, nestled against his pulse.'





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so it’s been a year and some months ahaha whoops…but we made it!! I’m back and very pleased to present tnahp pt.2!! aka Back On My Bullshit (Angst Remix)
> 
> Pls enjoy responsibly

At some point in the distant future, someone will ask Keith when he fell for Lance.

Keith will be all scowls and red ears, as usual, but his answer will come easily: that it was around the first year in space together. That it had been because Lance was kind under all that bluster, that even when Lance acted like he hated him, he’d gone out of his way to help. That it had been a culmination of events and that it had been _effortless_, although unexpected. He’ll say a lot more than he planned to, caught up in the memories, and when he catches Lance looking at him in surprise, he’ll go even redder and bark out an embarrassed, _what?_

And Lance will laugh and say, _no, it’s just—it went a lot different for me, _and then refuse to elaborate when Keith demands it.

This is how it went:

“Do you know why I called you in here, cadet?”

Lance, with his shoulders pressed to the back of the chair and his hands folded on his lap, nods once, regulation perfect. “Yes ma’am.”

The commander’s expression remains clinical and detached. “Well?”

“It won’t happen again.”

“You’ve failed your sim exams twice now.”

“Third time’s the charm, ma’am.”

“Third time’s also grounds to suspend you for review,” she says idly. “Don’t get smart with me.”

The blood drains from Lance’s face so fast that he gets dizzy.

“No, ma’am,” he croaks. “I just meant that I’ll get it—I’ll get it right on the next try.”

“Will you.” She glances at her terminal. “I’ve also been informed that your class scores are _less_ than satisfactory.”

Lance digs his nails into his thigh. Slowly, so she won’t see.

“The recent testing period put you last in your class.” She leans her elbows onto her desk, tapping a calloused finger on its surface. “This is a competitive program. If you can’t keep up, you don’t make the cut. Even if this _is_ just cargo pilot training.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Lance swallows. “It was my sister’s birthday and I’ve—I’ve been homesick.”

The commander blinks, languid. “Hard time adjusting?”

Lance nods.

“Understandable,” she muses, and taps the desk again. “But not justifiable. It’s no one’s fault but your own that you’re failing.”

Lance flinches, gaze dropping to his feet. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry.”

“Look at me,” the commander says. He does. She considers him, brown eyes sharp. “If you’re not willing to put in the work, cadet, I have to ask what you’re doing here.”

He stares at her. He doesn’t understand—what does she want him to say? Is that a trick question? Isn’t it obvious why he signed up for this?

“What brought you here,” she clarifies. The frown on her face deepens and Lance’s heartbeat picks up.

“Takashi Shirogane came to my school,” he blurts out. “His recruitment speech...”

The commander’s eyebrows rise. “Ah, yes. Shirogane. He brought in a lot of fresh faces last year.”

Lance nods. “I’ve always wanted to come here, and he—his pitch was very convincing.” He pauses, toes curling in his boots. “I’ve been reading his flight logs, his sim records—the ones I can access. He’s really good and I—I want to be like that.”

She laughs with her mouth closed, just a puff of air through her nose that makes Lance think he’s got bird poop in his hair, or that his zipper is down or something equally shameful. He grinds his nails deeper into his thighs.

“You’re not the only one,” she says dryly. “Shirogane’s recently adopted a stray that’s shaping up to be his own clone, at the rate that the kid is soaking up his advice. You might’ve heard of him—Keith Kogane.”

Lance almost bursts out laughing.

Of _course_ he’s heard of Kogane. Who hasn’t?

He’s the guy that won’t speak, the guy that looks like he’s a hair-trigger from bolting every time someone approaches him, the guy that shares only one class with Lance, because he runs in different circles—the _fighter pilot_ type of circle. And they’re in this one class together where he’s consistently ranked first, where he scores so far high up that everyone has preemptively excluded him from friendly in-class competition because _no one _is going to beat him, so why bother?

Of course Lance has heard of him.

“Yeah,” he says. “Kogane’s top of the class.”

The commander nods. “And you’re at the bottom.”

It takes Lance a long second before he can speak. He doesn’t know if she’s doing this on purpose.

“Right,” he says. “I’m—I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it,” she says. “Work harder, cadet. If you put in even _half_ of the effort that Kogane does, you wouldn’t be in here, wasting both my time and yours.”

Lance thinks his fingers might stab their way down to his femur at this rate. “It won’t happen again. I’ll do my best and I’ll be just as good as him. I—I _swear_,” he says, he _promises_. “Just don’t. Don’t expel me.”

She does that huffing laugh again. Lance won’t break, he _can’t_, not here.

“Just be better, cadet, and we won’t need to.” She smiles. “No need to make promises you can’t keep.”

His eyes are burning. He wills them to stay open. If he blinks, the tears will fall, and he doesn’t want her to see him crack even more than he already has.

She taps her desk again. “Teaching assistants, senior cadets in the mentor program, clubs and office hours—you have all these resources at your disposal. I expect you to use them, going forward. Understood?”

Lance presses his lips together. His chest constricts, because he _has_ been, he’s been doing all that and _more_ and how can he tell her that keeping busy until he drops doesn’t stop the twisting in his throat when he thinks, _I miss them. I miss home._

“Cadet,” the commander says, low, “am I _understood?”_

Lance inhales—_one two three four. One two. One two three four five_—and exhales.

“Understood,” he says, quiet.

The commander regards him evenly. After a moment, she leans back, seemingly satisfied.

“Good,” she says. “Don’t make us regret letting you in.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Lance tries. He studies and he practices and he smiles and laughs like he isn’t missing sleep. Like he doesn’t miss _home_. Like he doesn’t sit at his desk every night, tearing his hair out in both frustration and admiration, because he has no idea how the _hell_ Kogane makes it all seem so easy.

He powers through it, and if his pillowcase is always damp with worries, with expectations, with the fear of expulsion?

It’s no one’s fault but his.

“Dude,” says Hunk, “please take a mcfreaking break.”

“Can’t,” says Lance, without looking up from his textbook.

“You’re going to die from exhaustion at this rate,” Hunk presses, “and it’ll probably be during our study sessions and I’ll end up as the prime suspect because no one will believe me when I say you studied yourself to death because you’ve been cultivating that loud, air-headed persona since you stepped foot in this place.”

Lance raises his head and squints at Hunk.

“I don’t want to go to jail,” says Hunk, like that clarifies anything. “Also, it would suck if you died. Especially like that. It’d be a lame death. What would I even say for your obituary? Here lies Lance, school killed him. Moral of the story, stay uneducated?”

“…If you’re done, I’m going to go back to studying,” Lance says, and wow, he sounds like he hasn’t spoken in hours, which…might be true, actually. “Got a test in three weeks.”

Hunk gestures emphatically with his pencil. “My point exactly! _Three weeks_. Why are you worrying over material that your instructor hasn’t assigned you yet, instead of the _current_ material? I would’ve thought you’d be panicking over tomorrow’s test.”

“I already studied for that,” Lance replies. He goes back to the textbook. He wishes the words would stop dancing around on the page. “But this next chapter is a bitch and I still don’t get some parts of it.”

Hunk leans over the table, tilting his head to try to catch Lance’s gaze. “Dude. Most of your classmates haven’t even glanced at that stuff. I think you’ll be fine if you relax a bit.”

“No,” says Lance. “No, this isn’t good enough.”

Hunk frowns. “Lance, you’re really starting to worry me. Listen, I’m not saying you should toss your textbooks and student ID out the window. Just, like, take a twenty-minute nap. Get dinner with me, maybe. When was the last time you ate?”

Lance only shakes his head, but it doesn’t seem to appease Hunk, doesn’t make that crease between his brows go away.

Hunk sits back. He nods, slowly, and taps a finger on the arm of his chair.

“Okay then. I’m invoking best friend privileges,” he says solemnly.

“What,” says Lance, and then Hunk is slamming a hand onto his textbook.

Lance yelps, reeling back. His chair wobbles precariously and he flails, gaping in helpless bewilderment as Hunk scoops up the book, vaults over the table, snatches Lance’s bag off the floor and _bolts_ for the library doors.

“What the—Hunk! Get back here!”

Hunk is just turning the corner when Lance skids out into the corridor, tripping over his numb legs.

“Dude, what the hell?!” he yells, arms and legs pumping as fast as he can make them go. He’s already panting; god, he can’t be that tired already, can he?

“You’re going to die!” Hunk throws over his shoulder.

“_You’re_ going to die if you don’t give me back my stuff, man!”

“No, I won’t! Best friend privileges, remember? This is for your own good!”

“Best fr—I’ve never even heard of that!” Lance takes a corner too sharply, slamming into the wall. His ears ring and the floor tilts dangerously under the soles of his shoes. He slaps his hands onto his cheeks, trying to clear his mind, before sprinting after Hunk.

“It’s in the best friend manual!”

“There’s no such thing!” Lance ducks around a senior cadet holding a stack of papers. They shout, startled. If he was in his right mind, he’d be worried about getting reprimanded.

“Yes, there is! You would know about it if you read anything other than this shit!”

“That_ shit,”_ growls Lance, “is the only thing keeping me from getting kicked out, Hunk, so you give it back right now or I will throw your pet AI stapler into the recycler!”

Hunk stops dead in his tracks.

Lance curses, swerving at the last second to avoid a collision. He hits the wall, _again,_ and ends up slumped against a garbage disposal, hands on his knees and panting. Christ, he’s so tired.

“You wouldn’t,” says Hunk, hugging Lance’s stuff to his chest. “You love Javier, you let him staple all your assignments.”

“I won’t be having anymore assignments,” he wheezes, “if I don’t pass, now will I?”

He straightens, wincing when the cramp in his side protests.

“Now. Let me get back to my studying—” He makes a swipe for the bag but Hunk dodges— “or I’m blaming you and getting my revenge through sweet, little Javier and his precious one-of-a-kind artificial intelligence module, if I end up failing.”

Hunk narrows his eyes, looking distinctly unimpressed. “Bullshit. You’re more likely to hold yourself accountable for every single thing that went wrong, until you’re even blaming yourself for the fact that Iverson’s breath smells like a dead animal in the morning.”

“I—I would _not_ do that,” Lance splutters.

“I see you saying those words, but all I’m _hearing_ is your breakdown five days ago when you _literally_ did just that. Like, you seriously thought Iverson’s lack of dental hygiene was your doing,” Hunk says flatly. “Do you see what I’m getting at here? You’re approaching another nuclear meltdown, buddy, and you’re going to blow if you don’t cool it.”

“I’m _fine,”_ Lance argues. “Or I _will_ be, once you give me back my books!”

“What, so you can drive yourself to an early death?” Hunk scoffs. “No way.”

Lance groans, exasperated.

“Eat something first! Or sleep! Or both!”

“I can’t! I have a test—”

“Tomorrow, I know, but you’re prepared for that!”

Lance growls, and lunges again. He misses. Again. “You _know_ I mean the other one—”

“That you’ve _also_ studied for way too much, and that’s coming from _me_, an _engineering_ student—”

“Oh, so you think because your material is harder than mine, that I shouldn’t care?”

“Oh my _god_, Lance, that is _not _what I said and you know it—”

“Can’t you just mind your own business—”

“That is physically impossible for me, you said so yourself just last month—”

“This is _serious_,” he snarls. “I _need_ to pass this, I need to be better—”

“Lance, you’ve got the best cumulative score in your program, what the _hell _do you mean _better—”_

“Just give me back my shit, Hunk!”

Hunk catches his wrist, holds it as firmly as he holds Lance’s furious gaze. “Not until you tell me why you’re so obsessed with scores to the point where you’re ignoring the fact that you need to _live.”_

“Because they’ll send me back!” Lance yells.

They’re in the middle of the hall and he shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be getting right up into Hunk’s space like he’s about to fight his best friend, but he’s shaking, feeling like a string pulled taut and fraying, dipped in gasoline and dangling over an open fire.

_and it’s no one’s fault but yours_

“Because if I’m not _obsessed,” _he spits, “if I don’t _do better_, they’ll let me go and I hate myself because I wish they _would_. I wish I could go home and see my sisters and brothers and everyone I love again, but I _can’t_ because my parents worked so hard to get me here and I can’t repay them like that!”

Air comes in too fast and Lance backs up, gasping. He covers his face, digging his palms into his stinging eyes. _One two three four. One two. One two three four five._

He’s tugged into a warm chest, under sturdy arms, and the scent of cinnamon fills his nose.

“Lance,” Hunk sighs. “Buddy.”

“I _can’t_ do that to them,” Lance whispers, ragged, “but shit_, _Hunk, _shit_. I miss them so much.”

Hunk rubs circles into his shoulder blades, his spine, his nape, the drag of his fingers like grounding rods. His chest moves with his breaths, deep and even, and if Lance closes his eyes, it’s like he’s in familiar waters, rocking back and forth.

They’re in the middle of hall, and tomorrow Lance will worry about word getting around that he had a meltdown, he’ll worry about the commander finding out, he’ll worry about how far he’ll slip down the scoreboard from this, but for now—

He lets Hunk’s uniform soak up the tears.

The commander says, _if you put even half the effort that Kogane does,_ and Lance swears, _I’ll do just as good,_ and he tries, he _does_, but his rank never rises above Kogane’s.

Over time, his promise evolves from something made in fear, to something bitter and suffocating. Unknowingly, his thoughts stop lingering on going home and start revolving around surpassing Keith. Looking back, if there was one good thing to come out of his fixation, it was the distraction it gave him.

Everything Kogane does is infuriating, inspiring. He’s steady in a way Lance can’t emulate—from his consistent scores to his predictable scowls, his training regimen. Even his anger issues crop up like clockwork; the asshole James takes advantage of it often.

Lance, in comparison, oscillates between soaring and nose-diving, between second place-third-fifth-seventh and back again. He’s close, but never close enough.

He remembers the first time he manages second.

He’s standing there, staring at the ranking board as Hunk shakes him. When he turns, it’s just in time to catch a flash of inky black hair, drifting away from the crowd.

He wonders if Kogane even noticed the change in ranks.

The next testing period, he slips down to third, too caught up in the mess of emotions he feels whenever he thinks about the sight of Kogane’s back, turned away.

He swears it doesn’t bother him; swears that having this goal to strive for makes him a better pilot.

He swears that he’ll catch up, sooner or later.

He doesn’t get the chance.

Shirogane disappears and Kogane runs after him. He’s always running after him, pushing anyone who stands in his way, be it Iverson, be it random assholes looking to take advantage now that Shirogane’s gone—Kogane blasts them all away with his fury.

Later, Lance will find out that he has the dubious honor of being the last person Kogane speaks to—

_hey kogane you alright?_

—that _doesn’t_ end up getting punched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire chapter was just…  
Lance, stressed:  
Lance: alexa play breathin by ariana grande 
> 
> god don’t u just [clenches fist] love how easily canon lets me fit my dumb soulmate shit into its cracks?
> 
> (lowkey? lowkey i gave lance my adhd and trauma-based personality traits 😗 whoops)


	2. for that one anon. u know who u are love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some of you realized this, but allura and keith both say the same first words to lance in canon, how’s that for the langst potential huh????? Makes sense why lance latched onto allura and hated keith so much

At age seventeen, Lance knows disappointment, knows rejection and heartbreak like he knows the bends and weaves of the shoreline back home.

Number one was a kid he met on the playground when he was five. She said his words and gave him a funny look when he took too long to respond, too worried about getting it right. When he finally mumbled something, she only shrugged. He never saw her again.

Number two was on the first day of class, age ten. Lance’s skin was glowing and warm from summer vacation and when he went up to finally greet the boy who shared the stretch of beach with him for two weeks, all he got was a blank _who are you._

Number three…number three seemed like he was it. He smiled at whatever dumb thing Lance had sputtered out, and they grew closer over the school year until he rushed up to Lance one day, pink in the cheeks and grinning, his hand tangled with a strange girl’s, and Lance had thought, _ah._

Number five, a girl at someone’s house party. They danced and then she disappeared, which says enough.

Number six, a drunkard on the beach, after Lance helped her out of a puddle of her own puke.

Number seven, a classmate’s older sibling. Lance had a crush on him until he left for college.

Number eight, a tall, confident cadet at the Garrison orientation. He was lost. She found him trespassing.

You’d think it hurt less.

You’d think he’d get used to it—the shock, the hope, the numb resignation. You’d think.

Number nine comes around at age seventeen, amid secrets and conspiracies and alien ships falling from the sky, and no.

No, it doesn’t hurt any less.

With Keith, it hurts more.

Lance meets number ten—meets _Allura_ like this:

She falls into his arms, all dark skin and white hair and starshine eyes, and when she says, _who are you_, Lance thinks he could love her. He could do that, could pretend, because she’s incandescent_._ She’s celestial and gravitational and he could spend eons orbiting her like the Earth to her Sun, he could grow to love her in the same way a flower opens up at dawn, slow and sweet.

He could say, _yes, _could convince himself,_ yes I want this,_ _yes it’s her_, because the alternative is—

_Who are you,_ said the boy with eyes like the sky at dusk, right before it goes black; the boy with hair the colour of space; the boy who doesn’t remember. _Who are you_, said the one person that Lance has never been able to reach, never been able to measure up to, the one who literally got away.

Allura could be easy to adore. Lance could love her, and it’d be sweet and light. It’d be a mouth full of cherry clouds and everything he’s dreamed about.

But Keith. Oh, _Keith._

Keith is _messy_. He’s a complication. Lance has spent countless weeks and months of his life with Keith in his head like a fixed point, a compass. There is no fluff, no rose-coloured glasses to what he feels for Keith, not when he’s already full of envy and insecurity and bitterness.

He’s always wanted Keith to _see_. To look at him and know him and think about him just as much as he can’t help but do to Keith.

Having him say Lance’s soulmark just makes the need worse, makes it pulse and throb and bleed, and Lance would _never_ be fine if he was Keith’s, but Keith wasn’t his. He would hate that—he does hate that, because just the fact that Keith _fucking_ Kogane, prodigy and genius and lone wolf, is _number nine_, is another in the long list of people who took a piece of Lance and won’t give it back—

He can’t stand it.

Keith’s already taken so much out of him, whether the guy knows it or not, and Lance seethes from it all. He’s angry, feeling ugly and mean about it, because Keith is clueless and blameless, and this is all on Lance, really. This is—

_no one’s fault but his_

—for having his dumb soulmark that everyone seems keen on saying.

There’s an otherworldly princess in his arms.

There’s a haunting shadow at his back.

There’s a crossroads here: does he choose the fairy tale, or the tangled knot of too many issues and hang-ups?

And Lance looks down at Allura and pastes on a flirty grin, because how is that even a question?

A princess said his words, clear and true, and Lance tells himself, _yes, it’s her._ That she’s the one he’d choose over all the others.

He swears he does, because the alternative is he’s not good enough.

The alternative is continuing to chase after a boy who hasn’t once looked back at him. The alternative is a boy who is both his equal, and yet so much better. Just close enough to spark something kindred in Lance, and just far enough to tug him into a never-ending game of follow-the-leader.

The alternative is not worth thinking about.

“That was abysmal,” says Allura.

She stands with her feet planted, whip in hand, in the middle of the training room. The floor around her is scorched and scuffed, marked with gouges.

She’s completely untouched.

She casts her gaze over the rest of the them—Hunk and Pidge nursing their bruises to the side, Keith radiating worry where he’s hovering over a panting Shiro, and Lance on his back, staring fixedly up at the ceiling.

When she sighs, it’s quiet and so full of disappointment that Lance struggles to take in oxygen. Humiliation and guilt curdle in his gut like sour milk.

He didn’t want to hurt her. He knows he could’ve done better, knows he could’ve been faster, could’ve shot at her more—he just. Didn’t feel good raising the muzzle of his gun against a friend.

The Garrison never made cadets fire on each other. It was always simulations, fake enemies on a screen, if any. They were an exploratory program. It's different when he sights down the barrel and sees evidence of life in the sweat on Allura’s brows. It’s different because now, someone like Pidge or Hunk could get caught in the crossfire and that’s…

_that’s war_

Lance hadn’t wanted anyone to get hurt.

“I was hoping that after your successes in battle recently, that you’d be better at working cohesively,” she says. “This is our third session now. Your collective efforts should’ve been enough to defeat me. I’m only one person, after all.”

“No offense, Princess,” says Hunk, rising on his elbows, “but you’re ten thousand and something years old, and super strong. You’re basically one hundred humans put together.”

“And when we’re done here, you will have to be better than even that,” she points out, “if we hope to take down Zarkon.”

Hunk drops back down with a groan.

“I know you’re all better than this,” she says. “I’ve seen it. What happened today?”

Shiro gets to his feet. “I apologize, Princess. This one’s on me, I—” There’s an unusual note in his voice— “It happened again. I thought I was back on the Galra ship, and I just. Froze.”

“Shiro,” Keith says quietly, like he didn’t even mean to say it. He lays a hand on Shiro’s arm.

Lance sits up. He takes in the paleness of Shiro’s face, and the tension in Allura’s jaw, though her eyes have softened. He doesn’t look at Keith.

Allura shakes her head. “You don’t need to apologize for that.”

“Still. It won’t happen again,” Shiro says.

She pins him with a gentle, firm look. “You know you can’t promise that.”

_no need to make promises you can’t keep, cadet_

Lance flinches.

Shiro’s mouth twitches. “True,” he says, wry.

“You have a team,” Allura reminds him. “They’ll watch your back, you just have to let them know when.”

And Lance doesn’t even have to see it, to know Keith’s got that expression on his face. The one that says he’ll put that objective before his very life. Lance scowls at the wall behind Shiro’s head, feeling like he’s got enough drive to fire fifteen million holes into a training bot now.

“Understood,” says Shiro, with a nod. He straightens his spine and meets Allura’s eyes.

She smiles, fleeting, before turning to the rest of them. “That goes for all of you. It’s clear that none of you have fought together in battle for very long.”

“I’ve never even been in a fistfight before Blue kidnapped us and brought us here,” Hunk mutters. “You _shouldn’t_ trust me.”

“I know,” says Keith dryly. “You still shoot right at me sometimes.”

“I don’t know how to use that thing!” Hunk gestures to the blaster cannon lying halfway across the room. “It’s bigger than anything I’ve practiced with at the Garrison. Besides, everyone knows guns are Lance’s specialty.”

Lance almost bites clean through his tongue. He curses up a blue streak internally as the room turns to look at him.

Any other time. Any other time and he’d be happy that Hunk’s paying him a compliment, but currently, he feels like a pile of crap who could even manage a simple shot while an _arm’s length_ from his opponent. Specialty, his ass.

“They are?” asks Allura, and yeah. Yeah, that burns.

He shrugs, stiff. He can’t even look at her. And he especially can’t look at Keith. “Earth guns, I understand. Altean ones are on another level. We’ve mostly been fighting with our lions, so I haven’t gotten used to my bayard yet. Give me a firing range and I’ll have it down in an hour.”

Allura considers him. “I’ll have Coran show you where it is, after.”

He nods. When she turns away, he sends Hunk a pointed glare.

Hunk blinks, and mouths, _what?_

Lance huffs and shakes his head. And then, feeling eyes on his neck, he glances over his shoulder.

He finds Keith staring back.

_What are you looking at,_ he doesn’t say, because Allura’s annoyed enough and he doesn’t want to provoke her by getting into a fight. He sticks to a solid glare that has Keith’s brows shooting up his forehead.

“Alright, that’s enough for today, I suppose,” says Allura. She glances up at the observation deck. “Coran has prepared a meal for us in the dining room. We’ll resume our session in the next cycle.”

“Oh thank god,” says Hunk. “I can feel my stomach eating itself.”

Allura looks alarmed. “Your stomachs can do that?”

“Exaggeration,” Lance explains, breaking eye contact with Keith and getting to his feet. “He means he’s hungry.”

Allura shakes her head. “Come on then, before the food gets cold.”

Lance watches her go, the doors sliding closed behind her. He forces himself not to name the familiar, ugly twisting in his throat.

He walks over to Hunk and extends a hand. He grabs it and Lance leans back with his weight, pulling Hunk to his feet.

He gives Lance a smile. “Thanks.”

Lance clasps his shoulder. “You good? Allura didn’t rough you up too bad?”

“I’m fine. Or, I will be, once I get some food in me.”

“You and me both, buddy.”

“Lance,” says Pidge, sprawled at their feet. She wiggles her fingers at Lance. “Help me out here.”

Lance sighs but leans over to pull her up with a grunt. “You’re heavy.”

“I’m half of Hunk’s size!”

“Yeah, but you hang there like dead weight because you like making me work.”

She smirks and adjusts her glasses, but doesn’t refute him.

And then, from across the room: “Are you guys coming?”

Lance turns.

Keith stands by the doors. His gaze flicks between the three of them, eyebrows creased. Under Lance’s scrutiny, he shifts on his feet.

_Allura grabs his arm and swings him around, slamming him into Keith. _

_Keith grunts, and for a second, Lance swears he feels Keith’s arm around his waist, as if to steady him. But Allura is stronger, and the two of them are sent flying back, landing in a heap on the floor. Lance’s head spins. _

_Keith lies next to him, his arm stuck under Lance’s neck. Lance’s hand rests on Keith’s stomach._

_It feels…nice. For a second, it feels indescribably nice._

_And then Keith is hauling himself up, throwing himself in front of a paralyzed Shiro, and Lance goes back to feeling like an idiot._

There’s a jab at his side and Lance jolts back to reality. Hunk clears his throat, hand retracting from Lance’s ribs.

“Yeah, we’ll be right there,” Hunk says. “You go ahead.”

Keith is frowning at them. “Okay,” he says, and slowly turns away.

Pidge waits until he’s gone before asking, “Alright, what was that?”

Hunk shoots Lance a look. “Nothing. Lance just does that sometimes. Spaces out when he’s, uh, hungry.”

“Uh huh.” She purses her lips. “It’s fine, you don’t have to tell me. It’s obvious, anyway.”

Lance stills.

Hunk laughs unconvincingly. “What is?”

Pidge rolls her eyes. “Look, you don’t have to pretend. Lance even said it himself the moment he saw Keith.”

“What did I say?” Lance asks, barely hearing himself above the roaring in his ears.

“Uh, that you basically didn’t like him at all? And that you were rivals or something.” She snorts. “And you haven’t given the guy a break since we got here.”

“…Right,” says Lance weakly. “Yeah, well. He’s a jerk, so.”

“Haha,” says Hunk. “Spot on as ever, Pidge. That’s what’s going on here. Just some obvious antagonistic competition, between two guys who went to school together. Nothing else.”

Pidge looks between the two of them, opens her mouth, and then closes it. “You know what? I’m too wiped out to deal with whatever this is. I’m going to go get some food. I’ll see you guys there.”

“Sounds good!” says Hunk to Pidge’s back. “We’ll definitely be there soon! Just got to, uh, breathe for a bit, it’s not like we’re hiding—”

“She’s gone, Hunk,” says Lance tiredly. “You can stop. Jesus, you’re bad at this.”

“You knew that, though. And yet you still told me.”

“Yeah, that’s on me,” Lance admits. Hunk punches his shoulder.

“So, what was with that look back there?” he asks as they leave the room.

“You were embarrassing me in front of Allura,” Lance mumbles.

“What? No, I was wingman-ing you, dude. Trying to make you look good.”

“I _already_ look good,” Lance says, but it’s half-hearted. “And you do know that doesn’t work if I failed so badly in front of her only five seconds before, right?”

Hunk gives him a weird look. “Are you talking about training? Because you were the only one that got close enough to hurt her.”

Lance rolls his eyes.

“No, seriously.” Hunk stops him with a hand on his arm. “She put me and Pidge out of the running right at the beginning, deflected Keith, then you came in and actually made her move away from where she stood—”

“Because she dodged all my shots, Hunk,” Lance says dryly. “I missed like five times. That hasn’t happened since I picked up my first FPS game when I was twelve.”

“Yeah, but that’s ‘cause she’s an OP alien. The point is, you were such a threat that she literally _threw_ you away from her. Did you even notice how you did more in the fight than Shiro?”

Lance crosses his arms. “That’s not fair. Dude’s got PTSD.”

“Fine. How about this: you did more than Keith. He swung at her once, which she blocked, then got slapped with a Lance projectile. That’s it.”

Lance looks away, down the corridor, into the darkened end.

“I don’t know,” he says, after a long moment. “It’s just. The way she looks at us. At me.”

“What about it? I don’t think she was any more concerned about our nonexistent combat skills and poor endurance than usual.”

“It’s not that.”

Hunk takes his helmet off and tucks it under his arm. “Okay, you gotta spell it out for me, dude. What’s got you like this?”

Lance is still staring into the distance. If he focuses, he could almost imagine Keith’s standing just beyond the shadows, back turned.

“It’s been two weeks,” he says, “and I still haven’t told Allura that she said my words. Haven’t asked her if I’d said hers, but if she’d just forgotten with everything that had happened—her dad dying, her home being destroyed.”

Sweat slides down the underside of his jaw. He tilts his head back, and cold air settles on his neck. The ceiling arches high above them and his mind absently picks out sniping positions.

He says, soft, “I think I kind of knew it wasn’t a match from the beginning, but it still would’ve been nice, you know. If it was.”

“Are you…saying you don’t think she’s your soulmate anymore?” Hunk asks.

Lance closes his eyes. “The more I see her, Hunk—the more I watch her spearhead a_ war effort_ with five humans and the only other surviving Altean—I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it? She’s out of my league.”

“Who isn’t? She’s _Allura,_” Hunk says bluntly. “Look, you still don’t know for certain that she isn’t yours. Maybe she did forget.”

“You know just as well as me that _no one_ forgets. We see our wrists all the time. It’d be like if you forgot the colour of your hair.”

“I—” Hunk stops. “Yeah. Yeah, okay, you got me.”

But he puts a hand on Lance’s shoulder and says, “It’s not the end of the world if she isn’t it, you know. You’ve gotten through this nine times now, and you’re strong enough to get through it again. You’ll find your soulmate one day.” He smiles. “It’s destined, after all.”

Lance huffs a laugh. He clasps Hunk’s wrist and nods.

“Okay?” Hunk asks.

“Yeah. Yeah, I—” Lance nods. “Yeah.”

“Lance.”

“I just—” He shakes his head. “It’s fine.”

“You know I’m going to find out about it sooner or later. Might as well just tell me now before I figure it out and blurt it in the middle of a debrief or something.”

Lance winces.

“Yeah, exactly. No one wants that. Spill.”

Lance chews on his lip. He shrugs, stiff. “I—really hoped that it would be her.”

Hunk hums, encouraging.

“She’s…amazing, and I—”

_Allura, standing in the middle of the dais. Chin raised, eyes bright and certain, as if the loss of everything she had known didn’t just happen a day ago for her. As if she wasn’t Atlas, the universe on her shoulders, the future in her palms._

“I thought that if I was hers, then it’d mean that I wasn’t—lacking, this time.”

_Keith, jaw set, arms crossed and leaning against a wall. Self-assurance in the lines of his body that wasn’t there before, back when he was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen and running from everything. The desert had forged him anew._

_Looking at them both makes all the parts Lance doesn’t like about himself so much more glaring._

He says, “Just this once, I wanted to be enough.”

“What—you _are_ enough,” Hunk says. “Lance, what—”

“I just thought,” Lance continues, “that if _Princess Allura_ of Altea was my soulmate, then it wouldn’t hurt as much that he wasn’t.”

Hunk freezes. “…He.”

“It doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t—” Lance swallows. “I was always one step behind. Shouldn’t that—shouldn’t that mean that we were almost equals? Shouldn’t it mean I could’ve been enough for him?”

“Shit,” says Hunk. “Ah, shit. Keith.”

“_Keith_,” Lance agrees, with a laugh. He rubs his hand over his face. “I don’t get it. What’s the difference? How is he always better than me? Why am I never _enough—”_

“Lance? Hunk?”

Lance’s teeth snap closed. He whirls around, pulse hammering in his throat.

“Shiro,” he says. “What—hi. What are you doing here?”

Shiro jogs up to them. He scans them up and down. “You two were taking a while to show up. Thought I might check up on you.”

“Oh.” Lance rocks back onto his heels. “That’s nice of you. We were just. Talking.”

“About really boring stuff!” Hunk adds quickly. “Like trees and uh, water fountains, and how we, uh—”

“Miss them! You know, like, things we miss about Earth, and stuff.”

“You…miss trees,” says Shiro, “and water fountains?”

“Well—” Lance and Hunk share a look. They shrug. “Yeah.”

A pause, and then Hunk says, “Totally unrelated, but how good is your sense of hearing?”

Lance elbows him so hard he gasps.

“I—fine? Nothing’s wrong with it. Why?”

“Just wondering if the Galra messed with anything else.” Hunk wheezes. “Scientist’s curiosity, you know how it is.”

There’s a faint frown on Shiro’s face. He looks between the two of them. “Are you guys…okay?”

“We’re fine,” Lance chirps. “We’re great. Right, Hunk?”

“Except for the fact that you stabbed a hole in my small intestine?” Hunk hisses at him. He coughs. “Yeah, Shiro, we’re good. Just peachy.”

“Right,” says Shiro, after a pause. “Okay, well. Your food’s getting cold so…”

Hunk snorts. “It’s _goo_, how warm could it have been?”

“Well, Coran managed to get it pretty close to room temperature this time, so.” Shiro shrugs. “Progress, I guess.”

“Nice,” is Lance’s lame response. “We should, uh, we should probably head there…?”

The three of them continue down the corridor, boots clanking on the floor completely out of sync. No one says _anything_ and it’s ridiculously awkward.

They’re about halfway to the dining room when Shiro clears his throat. “Talking about progress—Lance.”

Lance jumps. “Yeah?”

“You, uh, you did really well today. You held Allura off for a while, and if I hadn’t zoned out at the end there, I would’ve taken that opening you were trying to give the team.”

Lance opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. He turns to Hunk.

“Don’t look at me,” he says. “I already said my piece. Maybe you’ll actually believe me now that Shiro’s pitched in.”

He’s right. Not that his assurances don’t do much for Lance—because they do, they always do—but there’s just something different about hearing your childhood role model echo the same sentiment.

“I—you noticed that?” Lance asks.

Shiro nods. “Allura probably did, too. It’s why she threw you into Keith.”

“Ugh. Don’t remind me; it’s embarrassing.”

Hunk rolls his eyes. “Oh, come on. It’s not nearly as bad as that time you tried to—”

Lance literally slaps Hunk’s mouth. “Hey, you know who did good today, too? You did, Hunk! Right, Shiro?”

Shiro blinks.

“You don’t have to lie to change the topic,” Hunk grouses.

“No, I’m serious! You are getting better.” And even as he says it, Lance realizes how true that is. “I know piloting and fighting wasn’t the focus of your studies, but you’re still out here flying with the same aircraft type, on the same battlefield, trying to kill a millennia-old empire.”

Hunk blushes. “I…well.”

“It might even be harder for you than anyone else because you get sick all the time!” Lance rubs his mouth, stunned that he hadn’t realized this, these past weeks. “Dude, your anxiety must be off the charts every time you get in your lion.”

“Well…” Hunk scratches his neck. “Usually, thinking about getting my hands onto the castle’s advanced AI keeps my head on straight for a while. That, and the breathing stuff you taught me.”

“That’s right,” says Shiro. Understanding dawns on his face. “I remember now, you weren’t in the same program as Lance and Keith. You were the top engineer for your graduating class. Commander Mona had you slated to join her crew for an apprenticeship.”

Hunk squints. “How did you—that wasn’t decided until long after you disappeared.”

Shiro taps his head. “Altean mind reading things. I saw it, but I guess all those memories don’t register until they’re mentioned.”

“Ugh,” says Lance, “don’t remind me about the fact that everyone’s probably seen me flexing in my mirror every morning before class.”

Shiro makes a strange face. “Well, now I have.”

Lance buries his face in his hands.

Hunk nudges him. “You had to jog his memory, huh.”

“I didn’t _mean_ to,” Lance groans.

“Just don’t mention any more embarrassing moments and you won’t have this problem again,” says Shiro, wry. “Lance is right, though. If I wasn’t getting all your memories of puking in the cockpit right now, and the fact that you got sick in Blue that time we found her, I wouldn’t even know it could get that bad for you.”

“I…thanks, you two. Means a lot,” Hunk mumbles, ears red. He clears his throat, and lifts his chin, adopting a regal expression. “I mean, I’m not called a genius for nothing.”

Lance laughs, fond, and reaches up to knead his palm on Hunk’s hair. “Whoa there, big guy. Don’t go getting a swelled head now.”

“It’s never going to be as big as yours, don’t worry.”

Lance kneads harder and Hunk yelps.

Shiro shakes his head at them both, an easy grin on his face. “Alright you two, knock it off. We’re here, and if Coran sees you fighting—even roughhousing—he’s going to walk us through his workplace behaviour seminar again.”

They blanch in tandem, and Shiro laughs.

“He wouldn’t actually, right—”

The doors open.

Keith stands on the other side.

“Shiro, Hunk,” he says. “Lance.”

“Hey,” says Shiro, “I found them. Have the others started eating yet?”

“Yeah.” Keith shifts on his feet. “I finished, actually. So…”

Shiro crosses his arms. “More training?”

Keith shrugs.

“Okay.” Shiro sighs. “Just don’t overdo it. Again.”

Keith nods, and slips past them with his head ducked. Lance doesn’t watch him go.

“Okay, I’m a quick eater, myself,” says Hunk, “but did he seriously finish his food in the five minutes we were gone?”

“You should’ve seen him on his first day at the Garrison,” says Shiro, with a snort. “If I hadn’t been briefed on the new cadets, I would’ve thought a rabid animal had snuck into the canteen.”

They enter the room. Allura looks up from her tablet, a spoon of goo hovering near her mouth. “Ah, Shiro! Grab a bowl and come have a look at this. I think you’ll find it interesting for tomorrow’s exercises.”

“Sure, Princess.” Shiro breaks off from them with a wave. “Let me know if you two need anything.”

“Will do!” says Hunk, while Lance nods. “Still not used to it.”

“Used to what?”

“You _know_. Every kid had a poster of this guy in their dorms, and now he’s our commanding officer and sometimes he cracks jokes with us?” Hunk pauses. “Weren’t _you_ one of those kids?”

“Shup up,” Lance hisses. “They were handing it out, okay? It was free.”

Hunk only gives him a look.

“Whatever,” is Lance’s retort. “I gotta talk to Coran.”

“What, now? Aren’t you going to eat, first?”

“No, yeah, of course.” He jerks his thumb over at Coran, sitting at the far end. “Just going to ask him some questions about the shooting range.”

“Alright. I’ll save you a bowl.”

“Thanks, buddy.”

“Hey, wait.”

Lance looks over his shoulder.

“We weren’t done,” Hunk says, low. “But you know where to find me, if it starts bothering you again.”

Lance blinks. Smiles. “Of course. You know where I’ll be, too, if you need me.”

Hunk grins. “Sure do.”

Coran is as helpful and enthusiastic as ever when Lance inquires about the shooting range, offering to go over all the settings and features they have. Lance readily agrees, eating as fast as he can so they can get started sooner. He catches Allura’s gaze on the way out, and she gives him a nod and a smile. The blood still rises to his face, his heart still bangs away, but he doesn’t sputter.

Doesn’t feel the need to wink or flirt or rile her up _(because for some reason, he likes them mad, likes them fuming and scarlet—) _and he thinks that it might be better this way. Because Allura needs a trusted soldier more than she needs a boyfriend, and Lance needs a friend more than he needs a goddess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it wasn’t until I finished this chap that I realized how well the numerous soulmate rejections play into lance’s whole ‘never being anyone’s first choice’ struggle LMAO I wish I could say I was that much of an intellectual.
> 
> this chapter was both the reason I wanted to write a sequel, and also 50% of the reason why it took me so long to actually finish it. I wanted to build more on the fact that keith and allura (rival and love interest) have so many goddamn parallels—like they both say the same damn thing to lance when they first meet him idk what kind of foreshadowing shit that is, but if limb and judeass won’t capitalize on it, I will lmao. 
> 
> this chap kept being such a bitch though. It took me a whole damn month. It was so difficult to put into words the difference in Lance’s feelings for keith and the ones he thinks he has for allura. i’m not completely satisfied with the end result but [shrug emoji] what can you do, right?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Klance AMV] I Won’t Say I’m In Love – Lance ft. Hunk & Pidge as The Muses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (avery if you’re reading this thank you for the donation ily)

The first time Lance felt anything aside from irritation or apathy towards Keith was during that food fight, way back at the start.

The second time happens months later, after the mess with Sendak, after the Blade and Keith’s revelation—after they’ve grown as a team. It happens on a planet full of blue bi-pedal tigers, fresh from battle and soaked in their own greenish blood.

They’re an intimidating sight, he won’t lie.

Which is why, when the leader turns on Keith like she’s thinking about ripping his throat out, when a crowd of war-hungry predators lock in on him—all Lance feels is true, unparalleled _terror_. For _Keith_.

Terror, because these guys are supposed to be friendlies. Terror, because if they decide to attack—can the team retaliate? Are they allowed to defend against people who have already suffered so much? Aren’t they supposed to help, not bear arms? Aren’t they _heroes?_

But what scares him most, is that Keith looks like he’s just going to stand there and take it.

The entire team is voicing protests, but the jerk’s dead quiet, head bowed—like he’s already lost this. Like he hasn’t spit and scowled at aliens who laughed at Hunk’s timid nature or stared at Shiro’s prosthetics. Like he’s not worth standing up for, too.

And Lance thinks, _fuck that,_ thinks, _what, he thinks he has to be treated differently just because he’s half-alien? Bastard, I’ll show him._

He opens his mouth to speak.

And by god, does he make it count.

After, when Keith rubs his neck and mutters a thank-you, looking all for the world like Lance has done something _amazing_ and _unexpected_, Lance gets that urge in his chest again. That familiar competitive burn that drove him all the way out here, into space, into a war.

Except this time, it says, _so he thinks I can’t be nice, huh? He thinks I can’t look out for him more, huh? _

_Well, challenge fucking accepted._

When he looks back on this moment, he will lament at how stupid he was.

It starts off innocuously. In fact, it begins without his conscious decision, this trend of being nice to Keith.

They’re already teammates, watching each other’s backs along with everyone else, so it’s not even hard to take a few more hits for the guy. If he’s being honest, that day with the Feryter untwisted his perception of Keith.

Now, instead of seeing someone who goes out of his way to get into trouble with enemy forces, he sees a guy who purposefully draws the gunfire away from the team. It’s—well, he still gets annoyed by it. Keith is still _annoying_ with his hero complex, but with Lance’s competitive streak, somehow this mutates into him tailing Keith, flanking Red and covering his ass.

He’s not sure if Keith notices. He himself didn’t realize until Hunk pointed it out after a mission, smiling slyly the entire time.

“You’re mothering him,” he teases.

Lance throws his helmet to the floor. Hunk rolls his eyes. “Say that again and I’ll pour sugar into the fuel lines of your lion.”

“You wouldn’t even know what that’d do to Yellow.”

“I don’t. But you do, and judging by your face, it’d be pretty bad. And that’s enough for me.”

On one particular instance, Lance finds Keith Kogane, child prodigy and possibly the protagonist of an anime in some other universe, huddled behind a stack of toilet papers. From his own brother.

“Are you _hiding?” _he asks, incredulous. “In the _janitor’s closet?”_

“Shiro’s been on my ass about our last mission for two hours!” Keith’s eyes are wild. Ah yes, the look of a younger sibling on their last nerve. “The only reason I’m still not getting my ears lectured off is because Coran asked him about his eyeliner and I booked it the moment his back turned.”

Lance considers him, his crazy-eyes, and the way he’s gripping that duster like a knife. It surprises him, how easy it is to offer the guy a helping hand here.

“You’d do that?” Keith asks, when he says he’ll ask Pidge about the door lock.

Lance tries to play it off, but he’s already planning out what else he can do to get the idiot to _stop_ looking at him like _that_.

‘Cause, honestly, what kind of person gets _that_ surprised by basic human decency?

It pisses him off.

_It makes his chest tight. Makes his throat close up, makes his mouth pull down in a frown._

_You could mistake it for anger, sure._

_If you wanted to be an idiot, that is._

It escalates.

He stays up waiting for Keith, just to make sure the guy eats something.

He starts carrying bandages in his jacket pocket, for the scrapes and cuts that Keith accumulates in training, on the field. He’s always getting hurt faster and more often than anyone else, the dumbass.

He steps in between Keith and aliens, when either party starts looking murderous. He redirects, distracts, diffuses. It’s not hard; he did it for Veronica every time she got a boyfriend their parents didn’t like.

He finds himself softening, day after day. And Keith, he—

He softens, too.

_Lance is an idiot._

The door slides open and Lance stumbles through.

Hunk looks up from a disemboweled Galra sentry, elbow-deep in its guts. “Lance, hey—dude, are you okay?”

“I…think so?” Lance drops into Pidge’s chair. “The strangest thing happened today.”

Hunk grabs a rag to wipe his hands and neck. He ends up with more grease on him. “Yeah? What?”

“Keith asked me to train with him.”

Strangely, Hunk grins, then goes blank-faced. He nods, solemn. “How’d uh…how’d it go?”

“That’s the thing—_we aced it_.”

“Really? Dude, awesome!” he pauses. “It _is _awesome, right?”

Lance scrunches his nose. “I—yeah, I guess? I mean, we were pretty cool. But it’s also…weird? It’s weird, right? It’s almost suspicious how good we were.”

Hunk cocks his head. “Mm, not…really?”

“What do you mean, ‘not really’?”

“Well, you guys actually work well together. That time with the bomb, obviously, is one, but remember when you guys had to infiltrate and disable a fleet of Galra ships?”

“Yeah, we argued the entire time, and he didn’t get my hand signals at all.”

Hunk leans forward. “Yeah, but that’s what shocked me, no offense, but you were both so antagonistic, you had everything going against you—and yet you still got the job _done._”

Lance considers this. “That’s…”

_He yells, _grab my hand_, and Keith’s hand shoots out, latches on, the fabric of his gloves sliding over Lance’s wrist. His eyes are wild, burning. In the second that those eyes lock onto him, Lance feels like he could topple a god._

He rubs his neck. “I guess I never realized. Like, I knew we were part of a team, but…one-on-one, I thought it was always going to be—rough.”

Hunk points at him with a wrench. “But now you know. It can be different. Better. And hey, I think this means your plan to woo Keith has been working!”

Lance falls out of his chair.

“My plan—I was just being—that’s not even—_I am not_—” he scrambles to his feet, spluttering and steaming red— “_wooing Keith._”

Someone chokes from behind him.

He turns.

Pidge stares back at him, bug-eyed. She’s clutching a mug of coffee and five datapads to her chest.

“Pidge—” he says pleadingly. “Pidge, it’s not—”

“I’m telling Shiro!” she shrieks gleefully, bolting out the door. The mug goes flying, shattering to pieces on the floor.

Hunk bursts into laughter.

Lance curses them both and gives chase.

The last of his armor clicks into place on the mannequin.

He steps back, appraising it. Brushes a spot of dirt off and nods, satisfied.

“Now that’s the armor of a winner,” he says, turning around.

Hunk and Pidge are sporting matching stank faces.

Hunk shakes his head. “Boasting is a bad look on you, buddy.”

Lance cocks his hip, smirking. “You’re just mad because we beat you so easily.”

“By a minute,” Pidge scoffs.

“Ah, ah, ah.” He wags a finger. “A _dobosh and a half_, the moustache man said! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if Keith’s up for victory ice cream.”

And Hunk, that—that fucking _guy_—says, “Is that a euphemism?”

Lance trips over his dignity and goes sprawling face-first onto the floor. Why does this happen. Why. Every fucking time.

“Oh my _god_,” Pidge hollers. She high-fives Hunk so hard she goes stumbling back. “Hunk, I owe you my _life._”

Hunk crouches down by Lance’s head. “Where’s your partner to save you now, McClain?”

Lance just groans pitifully. Evil, his first friend, his brother—evil. He wants to die here.

Hunk laughs, breaking character. He pulls Lance to his feet. “C’mon, loverboy. Why are you kissing the floor when you could be kissing—”

_“Sugar in your fuel tank,”_ Lance hisses. “I swear to _god._”

“You know we’re right, though,” Pidge teases. “You want to _kiss_ him!”

“I do not! He’s—just a friend! A teammate, a—a colleague!”

Pidge laughs _in his face_. “You call him Red. You gave him a _nice_ nickname.”

“I was getting tired of saying Mullet! The fact that it sounds nice is completely by coincidence.”

“Okay, but dude, I caught you staring at his mouth yesterday,” Hunk states. “He was eating my cupcakes and he had some frosting on his face and you—”

“Shut up shut up _shut up_—”

“You stared right at him and _licked your lips!”_

Lance screams at him.

Pidge is on the floor, wheezing.

“I hate the both of you!” Lance declares, face flaming red. “So much hate! I’m leaving!”

“Aw, you gonna go off to cry in Keith’s arms?” Pidge taunts. “You gonna cuddle? You gonna use your baby blues to woo him some more?”

“I’m going to walk out the airlock!”

“Oh, so he can save you again, right? Lance? Am I right?”

He flips them off and stomps way.

Stupid, stupid—what kind of friends even—he didn’t lick his—Keith is his _rival—_

“I am _not_ wooing my _rival_,” he grumbles. “I am being a _nice person_ because my mom didn’t raise an asshole, unlike _some _people.”

If he was wooing Keith, he’d—he’d be doing _romantic_ things. Things like listening to him vent—

_“Shiro put that stupid Unilu teddy bear in my bed while I was sleeping again because he thinks it’s funny for me to wake up in the morning to an ugly, possessed-looking doll staring me straight in the face and I want to stab him with a fork—”_

—Or spending time with him for fun—

_“Keith, dude, I just figured out how to get the pool to simulate tidal waves and tidal pools. You _have_ to check this out.”_

Wooing means dates, and—and flowers and eating together alone and buying nice things for each other—

_Keith stretches, suit pulling tight over his shoulders. “Damn, that mission made me hungry. Think the others are back yet?”_

_“Nah, they’re probably still flying back.” Lance pauses. “I think Hunk still has some lasagna left over. I’ll grab us some while you shower.”_

_“I—seriously?”_

_“I’m not going to poison it, Mullet, don’t worry.”_

_Keith raises his hands. “I didn’t say you would. Thanks, Lance.”_

_“No problem. Oh, also, found this while we were planetside.”_

_“Is this, uh, for me?”_

_“Yeah. Cool, huh? It’s dead, don’t worry. Databases say it’s a—scorpion sort of thing? Its venom made its victims sing.”_

_“Did you say—”_

_“Sing? Yup. I was thinking…if we synthesized the venom? Diluted it? And then put it a certain black paladin’s coffee…?” Lance wiggles his eyebrows._

_With one hand cradling the dead animal to his chest, Keith places the other on Lance’s shoulder and solemnly says, “This is the best fucking birthday ever.”_

_And then he turns away, heading for the showers._

_Lance stands there. He blinks. “It’s…it’s not even your birthday…”_

—wooing means being considerate, and looking out for each other, and—and first of all, he'd have to have the intention to woo someone for it to even count, right?

Right?

Lance turns the corner.

At the end of the corridor: Keith and Shiro, the former struggling under the latter’s grip.

“Could—could you let me live,” Keith is saying, “just this once, for _fuck’s sake—”_

“Keith? Shiro? What are you guys doing?” he asks, jogging closer.

Shiro says something, but it’s too faint from this distance. He smiles, but there’s like…something honestly kind of scary about it? What the heck? He says, “Lance, hey—” and at that moment Keith rips himself away from Shiro and frantically yells, “Janitor’s closet!”

It’s ridiculous, how Lance reacts to him, sounding like that. It’s a shot of adrenaline to his veins. Like he’s a Russian sleeper agent and Keith just said his trigger words. Like he’s a dog and Keith’s just said the word, “walk.” Fuck, what the fresh fuck. Is that concerning? He feels like he should be more concerned.

Shiro’s face when Lance steals Keith away is fucking hilarious, though. He wishes he’d caught it on video.

“Whew.” Lance slumps back against the wall. They’re in some random part of the castle. Actually, they—they might be lost, but that’s a problem for future Lance and Keith. “You good, buddy?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m—I’m great.” Keith brushes the sweaty bangs from his flushed face. He blinks and his eyelashes brush against the tops of his cheeks.

Lance absolutely does not stare, why would he stare, sweat is gross and Keith’s hair is gross and his lashes are grosser. Obviously.

“Thanks for the assist.” Keith holds out a fist.

Lance bumps it with his own. “No problem, dude. Good work today, by the way. We totally showed Team Punk.”

“Yeah, you too.”

“Just. Don’t do that thing with the locker again.”

“I heard you the first time, Lance.”

“No, you didn’t. If you had, you wouldn’t have slashed it to pieces.”

Keith just shoves him. “God, you infuriate me.”

“Right back at you, Red.” Lance stuffs his hands in his pockets and revels in the long-suffering sigh Keith gives him. “Hey, you want to get some ice cream to celebrate?”

“We have ice cream? Since when?”

“Weell…” He makes a show of looking around. “You know how we just got Kaltenecker from the space mall?”

“Yeah…?”

“So, a couple days ago I just went ‘fuck it’ and tried milking her—”

“You what?!”

“Shh, keep it down! Anyway, it worked, I got like an entire bucket and I hid it in the medbay freezers, next to the cold patches that no one uses because they smell like fish? For some reason? Which is strange because Coran says Alteans don’t even eat fish or use it for medicinal purposes—”

“Lance.”

“Right, sorry. Anyway, I hid it there, because I wanted to try something out with you first, before I tell everyone else about the milk and therefore become a cow farmer who has to milk Kaltenecker for Hunk’s milkshakes and Pidge’s growing teenage body—”

“You know we’re in the same boat as her, right—”

“_Anyway_, I bought a canister of liquid nitrogen from the Olkari markets yesterday. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

Keith grins, slow but bright. “We’re _making_ ice cream?”

Lance grins right back. “Hell yeah, we are!”

“What are we waiting for, then? Lead the way, sharpshooter.”

It takes all of Lance’s self-control to not visibly react to the nickname. That’s a first. “Sharpshooter?”

“I think it fits, after that shot you pulled today.” Keith raises a brow. “You don’t like it?”

“It—it’s fine. Good. Whatever. I don’t care what you call me.”

Keith snorts. “You used to get mad that I called you by your _name_.”

Lance flushes. “Okay, whatever, dude. Let’s just get going—I’ve been waiting a week for this.”

“You held out that long? I’m touched, Lance.”

Lance mimes kicking Keith. “Shut _up_ already.”

Keith sticks his tongue out. “Make me.”

Lance gets the immediate and incredibly distressing image of how exactly he could go about shutting Keith up and has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming.

This is Hunk’s fault, he knows it. Somehow, this is that guy’s entire, whole-ass fault.

Shockingly, the ice cream turns out delicious, despite neither of them really knowing how to make it. With a little bit of contraband caramel drizzled on top, it’s almost like they’re back on Earth, in some hipster ice cream parlor.

And, okay, that _sounds_ like a date, but it’s not. Really, he swears.

It’s not—they’re just friendly teammates.

Nothing more.

Lance doesn’t know why he brings it up.

Considering how much he hates talking about soulmates himself—the whole mess with false matches and with…well, _Keith_, he doesn’t understand why he chooses this day and time to ask Keith if he’s met his soulmate.

Honestly, he just wanted to eat some dubious alien food with the guy.

And now, instead, he’s cradling Keith as he breaks down.

“One two three four. One two. One two three four five,” he recites. Keith hiccups.

Lance stares at his bowed head, feeling like an ass. If he hadn’t brought this up, if he hadn’t pressed more when Keith let it slip…

He hadn’t known it was like that for the guy.

For god’s sake, in all of Lance’s ruminations about Keith and about soulmates, somehow he forgot to think about Keith’s _actual_ words—his actual soulmate, who is out there somewhere. Out there living, going on with their day, completely unaware of how much pain Keith’s been carrying around for them. How much fear and guilt he feels for them, someone he hasn’t even met.

Lance is an asshole.

He got so caught up in his own insecurities, in not being good enough, that he mistook Keith’s deflection for arrogance. He bulldozed right into something he shouldn’t have and now Keith’s on his knees, having a panic attack.

Lance tightens his grip on Keith’s hand, presses that hand to his chest a bit harder, a bit more securely.

Keith squeezes _back_.

“Sorry,” he rasps. “I—I don’t know what…”

Lance shakes his head sharply, not that Keith sees it. “Red, don’t. Don’t apologize to me, _I _should be the one doing that. I shouldn’t have pushed you. I’m sorry.”

Keith sighs, a shuddering sort of thing. “It’s okay. I—didn’t even know I’d react like that.”

“It’s still not okay.” Lance absently strokes his thumb over Keith’s knuckles before releasing it. “You going to be alright, now?”

“Yeah…yeah, I think so.” Keith scrubs his face, wipes away all traces of his breakdown. He peers up at Lance, timid. “Help me up?”

And what—what the hell is Lance supposed to feel about that? About how Keith would still ask that when Lance has just drop-kicked him into his lowest moment? When Lance just witnessed something so intensely personal?

He swallows. Sticks out his hand.

“Always, Red.”

Something is seriously odd about these aliens.

It’s not their unnatural beauty. It’s not their shimmering eyes, or their graceful limbs, or how they giggle and smile at everything. It’s not in the way they look like they’re drifting across the floor instead of walking. It’s not even the way they reacted to being freed from Galra control with barely more than a blink.

What’s _weird_ about them, is how they won’t. talk. to. him.

No matter what he does, no matter how loud or how amiable he makes himself, the Kol-mr just side-eye him and walk away.

Lance slouches back against a tree, feeling strangely miffed.

Across the field, a group of Kol-mr have convinced Keith and Hunk to join their game. Pidge is on the sidelines, yelling impractical advice at them.

As he watches, one particular Kol-mr takes advantage of Keith stumbling over the rough terrain to swoop in and catch him in her arms. She smiles down at him. He nods in thanks before throwing himself back into the game, oblivious. She frowns. A male Kol-mr pats her on the back, smiles serenely, and then drifts after Keith.

Lance scowls. Seriously?

“What are you doing all the way over here?”

He jumps. “Jesus—Allura, hey. Hi. You scared the hell out of me, thanks.”

She leans next to him. “You seem preoccupied. A habit that’ll get you killed one day, you know.”

“I crave death,” he replies, deadpan.

“You worry me sometimes.”

“Only sometimes? I wish you would think of me more often, Princess.”

Allura snorts. “Unrepentant flirt.”

“Demanding commander.”

“You know you like it rough.”

Lance reels back, honest-to-god a little stunned. “Whoa, _Allura!_ Oh my god, I was not expecting that of you. Damn, I’m so—I’m so _proud_.”

She grins. “You should’ve seen Coran’s face the first time I said something like that. I thought he was going to faint. But nevermind that, you haven’t answered me. Why aren’t you joining in on the festivities?”

His smile wavers. “Ah, well. I mean, it’s kind of funny, I guess—but the, uh, the Kol-mr are…I think they’re avoiding me?”

Her brows pull together. “They’re what? Why would they do that?”

He shrugs. “Beats me. I guess it’s fine, though, I could use the downtime. Don’t have to do the whole meet-and-greet thing.”

“That’s still rude of them,” she objects. “You haven’t done anything to them. Wait here, I’m going to have a talk with their leader—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He steps in front of her, hands raised. “Hold up, there’s no need for that. We’re leaving in an hour and this won’t be a problem anymore. It’s not a big deal, really.”

She eyes him. “Don’t lie to me, Lance, I can see that it bothers you.”

“I—yeah, I guess. But I’m used to this sort of thing.” He winces at the look on her face. “I’m fine, really—even better now that I got you here! Look, you don’t have to go off burning with righteous fury, just, uh, just keep me company? We can watch the Kol-mr try and fail to flirt with Keith; it’s hilarious, I promise.”

She sighs, but it’s fond. “If you’re certain that’s what you want.”

“It is. We haven’t hung out recently.” Lance pulls her down to sit against the tree. “Now, watch this. The Kol-mr in orange has been trying to show Keith how good he is at this game, but I think Keith just sees him as competition and keeps getting mad at how he’s stealing the ball.”

They watch as the male Kol-mr glances over his shoulder, checking for Keith, only to have the very guy himself tackle him from his blind spot. Keith jumps to his feet, grabs the ball and books it across the field. The Kol-mr struggles to sit up, gob-smacked. The female Kol-mr from before runs by and pats him on the head, giggling. Three of his teammates follow suit, every slap to the back sending him back onto his knees.

Keith scores a goal. He runs his hands through his hair; several Kol-mr visibly perk up.

Allura bursts into giggles. “You’re right. This is better than any Altean holoshow I’ve seen.”

“Right? My aunties would call their behaviour scandalous, to be honest, acting like they don’t have soulmates—wait, what’s he doing?”

Keith is walking away from the game field, waving a hand over his shoulder as the Kol-mr gather to watch him leave. They pout, calling after him. He shouts something back. Starts jogging.

Towards Lance and Allura.

“Well,” Allura says, getting to her feet. “Now that your partner’s here, I suppose it’s time for me to switch out.”

He blinks up at her. “You don’t have to go.”

She smiles, secretive. “I know.”

“Lance, Allura.” Keith is panting lightly when he reaches them. “Mind if I join you?”

“I was just leaving,” she says apologetically. “I can see Shiro signing at me to save him from a conversation.”

Keith snorts. “Just leave him.”

“I owe him one, unfortunately, or I would stay with you two.” She salutes them. “One more hour, paladins.”

“Roger that.”

“Understood, Princess.”

Keith drops next to him, close enough that their thighs brush. He heaves a loud sigh.

Lance takes in his sweat-soaked hair, flushed cheeks, and the way his finger yanks the collar of his suit down. He tilts his head back to let the cool air brush his heated skin, eyelids sliding shut.

Lance abruptly remembers who he’s eyeing up and snaps his head back around.

With a jolt, he realizes some of the Kol-mr are glaring at him from across the field. He feels a flare of irritation. Trying to tamp down on it, he picks a blade of grass and rolls it between his fingers. 

“You…you had fun out there?” he asks Keith.

“It was a nice workout, I guess.” Keith rolls his head, his shoulders. “You should’ve joined. It would’ve been more fun that way; we could’ve teamed up.”

Lance violently squashes the delight bubbling up. “Hah, yeah. But I don’t think your friends would’ve like that.”

“My what?”

He nods towards the group sulking by the goalposts.

Keith groans. “Right. Them.”

Lance’s brows climb. “Judging by that reaction, I guess ‘friends’ is the wrong word, huh?”

“They’re bothersome,” Keith states bluntly; Lance is so surprised he chokes on an inhale and ends up coughing. “They haven’t left me alone since we left our lions.”

Lance bites back a smile. “You know it’s because they’ve got the hots for you, right?”

“Haha. Very funny.” A scowl etches itself on Keith’s face.

“Whoa hey.” He moves to catch Keith’s eyes. “Red, I’m serious. I’m not like, making fun of you. Allura and I were just talking about it. They were totally being handsy with you in the game.”

Keith glances at him, uncertain. Whatever he finds on Lance’s face gets him to relax. “I guess they were kind of…weird. But—usually, it’s you that the aliens like.”

“What?” Lance laughs. “No, they don’t.”

“What do you mean, ‘no.’ You flirt with them all the time.”

“Yeah, but I never get flirted with _back_.”

Keith gives him an incredulous look. “Just on the last planet we visited, there were those three brothers that wouldn’t stop giggling at your jokes. That—that happens every time. People like being around you.”

Lance waves a hand. “Oh, that. Red, they just find me entertaining. Like a dog, or something. They don’t actually, like, find me attractive.”

Keith stares at him for so long that he thinks the guy might’ve fallen asleep with his eyes open. In the middle of a conversation.

“You aggravate me,” Keith tells him, which, rude. “Rewind a little: why wouldn’t the Kol-mr want you to join?”

“I don’t actually know. But they won’t get near me. They just stare,” Lance grunts. “They’ve been sending me death glares this entire time, you know. Probably because you’re sitting next to me instead of them.”

Keith’s head whips around. The Kol-mr notice and send enthusiastic waves back. He carefully turns his head away; side-eyes them. The aliens go back to glowering at Lance. Keith’s mouth goes flat.

“Before you do anything,” Lance rushes to say, because he’s well-versed in Keith’s murder face now, “we are literally leaving in under an hour, and—and if you don’t stab anyone, I promise I’ll spar with you until dinner.”

Keith considers this. “You said the Kol-mr avoid you?”

“Yeah?”

He nods. “Okay. If you let me hang around you so they don’t crowd, _and_ spar with me later, _and_ we spend some more time learning space names tonight, then I’ll let them live.”

Lance barks a laugh, even as his heart simultaneously trips and set itself on fire. Ka-boom. Critical hit. Skip 911, just call a funeral home, please and thanks. “How generous of you, mister murder.”

Keith just smirks. He settles into a more comfortable position, arms crossed over the helmet in his lap. Within seconds, he’s asleep.

Five minutes later, the Kol-mr are full-on seething; Keith’s head has dropped onto Lance’s shoulder. He nuzzles into it.

Lance, sweating profusely and face aflame, starts counting down the seconds until they can leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lance: [flirts successfully with everyone he meets]  
Keith: you’re handsome, people like you  
Lance: [confused math lady.png]
> 
> [tumblr](https://hiuythn.tumblr.com)  
[twitter](https://twitter.com/hiuythn)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> local boy struggles against his romantic destiny. What happens next will shock you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(btw if you’re freaking out abt tnahp or tiwlll on twitter, chances are I’ve probably seen it and want you to know that I love you so goddamn much thank you sdkfjsdkf)**
> 
> ((…like I mean it. Like if you’ve typed the words ‘tnahp’ or ‘there nestled against his pulse’ like I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it and I appreciate u so much u don’t even know sdfhsjf if it were socially acceptable I’d have gone thru and liked every one of y’all’s posts ok y’all so sweet <3))

The party is in full swing.

Music swells over the room, lively and passionate. The musicians situated in the corner lean into the motions of their strange instruments and down in the center of the room, the Gixir twirl and prance around. Those who aren’t dancing mingle by the refreshments, snatching up finger food and chatting with their mouths full.

The collective body heat is stifling, even from Lance’s perch at the top of the stairs. He tugs at the collar of his undersuit. Another hour. If he remembers Coran’s briefing correctly, they’ve got just one more hour before it’s socially acceptable to leave.

Speaking of the man, he’s smack dab in the middle of the festivities, dancing with a male Gixir and hooting with laughter. They take turns making the other spin ridiculously fast. Coran’s formal robes flare out, smacking into neighboring dancers. There’s a healthy flush to his cheeks.

Lance quirks a smile. He might not be feeling up to doing social rounds this time, but he’s glad occasions like these mean downtime for the team. Coran in particular; he works way too much.

And there’s Allura and Hunk, over by the kitchens. They’re engaged in an animated discussion with the head chef. Hunk’s projecting a screen from his armor, feverishly tapping away as the chef speaks, and Allura keeps pointing at a pastry in her hand. She’s got crumbs on her gown.

Lance’s gaze drifts over the crowd but he doesn’t find green armor anywhere. Pidge is probably hiding somewhere, on her tablet and bored out of her mind. Which only leaves—oh.

“Seriously?” he mutters. “This is getting ridiculous.”

“Wha’ is?” Shiro asks through a Gixiran puff pastry. That’s his ninth one. “Di’ someone do sumn’?”

Lance gestures down at Keith, surrounded by a group of Gixir. “Is it bad that I can’t tell whether these ones are just rabid fans, or if they’re people who actually have something against his heritage?”

Shiro leans over the railing, the food on his plate tipping dangerously with him. He squints. Swallows. “I think they’re fans. Pretty sure those wiggles mean they’re happy. The faster, the better, if I’m remembering Coran’s briefing correctly.”

“Uh, I hope you are, because those guys look ready to vibrate right out of their skin.”

“You think he needs help?”

“If they start spitting at him, maybe. I can provide the distraction while you grab him?”

“Solid plan.” Shiro finishes the last of his pastry and moves onto the berries. He scoops a handful from his plate and jams it in his mouth. His glove is going to be stained purple.

Lance props his elbows on the railing, chin in his hand. He flexes his toes and feels blood rush back. God, why don’t these things ever have chairs for him to sit on?

The Gixir are petting Keith’s hair now, clearly marveling over the texture. These guys haven’t got hair, just feathers in odd places—like on one leg but not the other, or sprouting from inside their ears, or under their chin.

One of them puts their open mouth too close to Keith’s face. He jerks back, headbutting a Gixir standing behind him. Thankfully, they don’t take offense; they just chitter and wiggle faster.

Keith looks around him, bewildered and annoyed. Lance sees the exact moment he decides to dissociate right out of there, staring blank-eyed over at the refreshments table. The Gixir keep on squirming.

Lance snorts, relaxing. There doesn’t seem to be a need for a rescue this time.

“They look like a coral reef, and he’s the fish that got caught in it,” Shiro remarks. There’s a cocktail in his hands now, his plate on the floor.

Keith’s posse is a veritable fire hazard now. A colourful, squirming blood clot. A growing cancer cell with him at the center. They’ve completely taken over this section of the room. Keith’s got his head titled up towards the ceiling. He’s taking slow, forced breaths, but his hands remain sword-free.

“Wow, look at him holding back,” Lance comments. “Gone are the days where he held Arusians at gunpoint. Sword-point.”

“Mm. He’s getting better, yeah. Growing into it.” Shiro sips at his drink. “You all are.”

Lance looks away from Keith. He blinks, adjusting to the lack of twinkling lights. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it can’t be easy, doing this.”

“What? The parties? The adoring masses? Ha, I could do this for years. Being a hero isn’t so bad.”

Shiro regards him from the corner of his eye. “You’re forgetting that I saw your memories. It might’ve been a while ago, but I still know you miss them.”

Lance’s grin falters.

“It’s hard. You don’t have to pretend that it’s not.”

“Don’t I?”

“No,” says Shiro. “You don’t. You’re still very young, Lance. You’re allowed to find this difficult. It’s a _war_.”

Lance fixes his eyes back on Keith. “But Voltron chose us. We can’t seem weak, or scared.”

Shiro mulls that over, sipping at his drink. And then quietly, he says, “Sometimes, it takes me hours to get out of bed. And sometimes, I don’t sleep. Because Galra cells and Altean bedrooms don’t look all that different, when it’s too dark to see clearly.”

Lance blinks. “You…?”

“It’s hard for me, too.” Shiro’s mouth quirks, a humorless smile. “So, you know. I get it.”

Lance straightens, hands wrapping around the railing. “I—well, yeah, I know about your whole…I mean the time you spent…”

Shiro nods, and Lance is shamefully relieved that he doesn’t have to say it. “So maybe we can’t _look_ a certain way to the public. Doesn’t mean we can’t still feel it.”

Lance nods. Nods again. Nods a couple more times. He doesn’t know what to say.

Shiro clasps his shoulder, smiling. “And hey, you guys are all doing really well. I’d rather none of you had to do this in the first place, but I’m…I’m proud of our progress.”

Lance breathes in slow and deep. He pulls his shoulders back, mouth quirking up at the edges. “Me too.”

Shiro places his empty glass next to his plate on the floor and settles back against an ornate pillar. There’s a pause and then he nods down to Keith. “I’m especially proud of how you two have stopped hissing at each other for every little disagreement.”

Lance feels a curl of embarrassment, but it’s overshadowed by a warm sense of accomplishment not a second later. He won’t say it, but he’s kind of satisfied, too.

“You don’t know how much easier it is to sleep,” Shiro continues wryly, “now that I know I can send you two out and you’ll actually watch each other’s backs.”

The memory of a recent joint mission with Keith flashes through Lance’s mind. He recalls almost being detected, of silently and viciously taking down the bot with a tackle Keith taught him. He sees in his mind, that stare Keith had given him after. Warm, half-lidded.

_Pleased_.

Inexplicably, Lance flushes.

Shiro’s eyebrows shoot up, and Lance scrambles for something to say.

“Haha,” is what he goes with. Genius. “Ha. Well. You know. Thought I’d try something new. It was getting—boring. Fighting with him.”

“Boring, huh?”

“Yeah, uh. It’s only funny when he gets mad.” Lance chuckles weakly. He clears his throat. “Also like, obviously it’s better for Voltron that we get along. Just. Thinking about the greater good.”

“Hm.”

Shiro cocks his head, gaze lazily drifting from Lance down to the crowd below. Possibly in the direction of where Keith’s still standing, being accosted by a million feathery hands, but Lance wouldn’t know. He’s doing his best to look anywhere and everywhere but there.

“So,” Shiro says, with a drawl in his voice like he’s stumbled on something curious, “you admit you do it just to rile him up?”

Lance catches the look on his face and blanches. “Oh my god, it’s not like that.”

Shiro makes a so-so gesture. “It’s a _little_ like that.”

“No. _No_, nope. No way. How did—where did you even get an idea like that?”

“Uh, well. It’s kind of…” Shiro purses his lips.

Slowly, with a significant glint in his eye, he tugs at his own hair.

It takes a second.

Lance’s jaw drops.

“I am not pulling his—his pigtails!” he hisses, red-faced.

“Oh, I agree. We all know it’s more like his mullet.”

“Shiro!”

“Sorry,” says Shiro, looking decidedly not sorry. “Couldn’t resist.”

Lance drags a hand through his hair. A waiter passes by and he snags a glass of _something._ He drinks half of it in a gulp.

“That better not have been alcohol,” Shiro says mildly.

“This is so weird,” Lance laments to the ceiling. “He’s your brother. Isn’t this weird? Embarrassing? Let’s go back to talking about the heavy, emotional stuff.”

“What could be more emotional than your feelings toward said brother of mine?”

Lance chokes on his drink. “Feelings?” he wheezes. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Oh, so we’re still at denial, huh.”

“Nothing is making sense right now.” He looks at the glass in his hand. “What was in this thing?”

“It’s not drugged, Lance. This is all very real, I assure you.”

“That sounded threatening. Why did that sound threatening? Am I getting the shovel talk right now?” He demands. “Shiro, I’m not dating Kei—oh my god, I can’t even say it—I’m not dating him. He’s my _rival_.”

“Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

“I can’t—” He casts a desperate glance around them— “What is going on? I am getting so much emotional whiplash from this.”

Shiro laughs. “C’mon Lance. I don’t know how many months it’s been, but let’s not pretend you two haven’t become more than frenemies.”

“The only person who still uses ‘frenemies’ is my seven-year-old niece, Shiro.”

“And the only person who still uses ‘rivals’ to describe you and Keith is just you, Lance,” Shiro shoots back, and damn. Damn, alright, Lance can see ruthlessness is a family trait, here.

“Okay. Okay, so I don’t hate him,” Lance admits.

Shiro is unimpressed. “You looked a Feryter in the eye and told her you’d leave her entire planet to _die_ if she didn’t stop bullying Keith.”

“That is a blatant misinterpretation of what I actually said—”

“You hang out with him for fun. Don’t think I don’t see it when you guys skate down the hallways in your socks.”

“It was a—a competition!” Lance splutters. “Obviously to see who was better—”

“At sock-skating?” Shiro asks, an amused look on his face. “Okay, what about last night’s meeting? When you told _Kolivan—_leader of a secret spy network—to reassign his agents because he can’t keep pulling Keith for missions?”

Lance throws out his hands. “It would leave Voltron vulnerable! It makes sense, okay?”

“I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m just saying that you ‘not hating him’ might be an understatement at this point. Listen, I just think it’s nice that you’re looking out for him now. Makes my job easier, that’s for sure.”

“I—you’re welcome? Why are you even telling me this?” Lance asks helplessly. He flags down a waiter and trades his glass for a plate of mini pie things. He jams one into his mouth, frazzled.

Shiro steals one from him. “Just…he wouldn’t mind, you know. If you asked.”

Lance busies himself with swallowing down the dessert. His mouth is dry, and the pastry lumps feel like baseballs in his throat. He’s not going to ask how Shiro knows that Keith wouldn’t mind—uh, whatever it is that he’s insinuating.

“I don’t know where this conversation is going,” he mumbles, even though he does, in fact, know, but is just electing to ignore it until forever, “but I wouldn’t—I mean he already has a soulmate, so.”

It’s telling that he doesn’t say “_we_ already have soulmates,” but Shiro doesn’t seem to notice.

“People still date.” Something flashes across Shiro’s face. “And sometimes it doesn’t work out with your soulmate. Just because you have an ending with someone, doesn’t make all the others any less real.”

There’s a story behind that, but Lance knows it’s kinder not to ask.

“It’s not like that,” he assures Shiro, still a little bit flushed. “Really, thank you for the, um. Advice? But I’m not—_we’re_ not, uh, like that.”

Shiro gives him a skeptical glance.

“No, seriously. Trust me. We’re just being friendly.” He makes a face. “Or, friendli_er_, I guess, because we still annoy each other to death most days.”

Shiro scrutinizes him. When it becomes clear that Lance is being completely serious, honest surprise settles on his face.

“Huh.” He frowns, apologetic. “I…must have misread things. Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it weird.”

Lance waves his hands. “It’s okay, man. I know you like to poke fun sometimes. And, I mean, I get where you’re coming from. Me and him—we did a totally one-eighty. What we are now probably looks _romantic_ compared to that time where we regularly threw sharp things at each other.”

He laughs, awkward.

“I guess so,” Shiro says, after a moment.

Lance just smiles, strained.

Before the atmosphere can taper off into silence, Shiro’s wrist beeps. A message. He takes a look, frowns.

“Trouble?” Lance asks, maybe a bit too eagerly.

Shiro shakes his head. “Allura and Coran. They need me to meet somebody.”

“Ah, politics. Good luck with that.”

Shiro grimaces. “Thanks. I’ll see you all back at the castle. Make sure Keith doesn’t cause an intergalactic incident.”

“Will do.”

And then he’s off.

Lance watches him until he disappears down the stairs, and then he immediately flags down a water carrying drinks. He takes two—chugs one as the waiter stares, wide-eyed—and slumps back against the wall with the other.

Jesus. Holy god, that did not just happen.

He takes several, long, agonizing moments silently coming to terms with every mortifying thing he’s said in the past fifteen minutes. He rubs his mouth. Worries at his lip with his teeth. Scrubs a hand through his hair and smacks his forehead at least six times. He’d be making a spectacle of himself if he wasn’t secluded up here.

“Jeez, get a grip,” he mutters.

But really, was it that obvious?

He’d just been trying to be friends. It wasn’t like he was _flirting_ or anything, so how did Shiro even—?

It’s not like it matters, anyway. He should just forget about it, clearly Shiro was just being kind and leader-y with all the _he wouldn’t mind _and the _sometimes it doesn’t work out with your soulmate_ stuff.

Lance knows what his chances would be—if there were any to begin with.

And besides, he thinks it’s probably better this way. Just being…being friends with Keith. He didn’t set out to do it, but that day with the Feryter…well. He just didn’t like seeing a teammate ostracized. Didn’t like that defeated look on Keith’s face. It felt wrong.

He’s—he’s not going to lie; the past weeks have proven they do better together than apart. They push each other higher—push the _team_ higher—and in a war, that can only be a benefit.

So they’re—they’re friends. Teammates, at least, and things are—good. They’re _fine._

_it still hurts, but not as much_

_because now Keith _looks_ at him_

_instead of through_

And okay, maybe sometimes Lance still feels like shit, like a hot mess, like something unwanted, next to Keith, but he can deal with it. He _has_ been.

“It’s fine,” he assures himself. “We’re good. _I’m_ good.”

It sounds weak.

He shakes his head, pulling himself out of his head. This is doing his mood no favours.

He directs his attention below again, takes stock of the situation. Coran is still tearing up the dance floor with Allura as his dance partner now. The Gixir are vibrating in a loose circle around them, looking inconsolably excited.

Hunk’s integrated his way into a group of Gixir standing to the side. Whatever they’re talking about, he’s frantically taking notes on it.

Pidge has emerged from whatever hole she ran off to and is skulking around the dessert table now. She’s got her tablet tucked under her arm, hands clutching a plate piled high with food.

Shiro is, of course, firmly stuck in the claws of the Gixir officials. Poor guy. Lance can see his pained expression from up here.

But before Lance can check on their last member, the music swells, loud and undeniable.

His eyebrows raise. He leans forward, eyes on the musicians.

As he watches, as he _listens,_ the harmonies multiply—five, six, seven parts and still more, until he loses count—winding around the melody as it rises and reaches a wavering, crooning note.

It holds. And holds and holds and the dancers have frozen still. Statuesque, otherworldly and alien, they gaze into each other’s eyes, holding their breaths along with the music.

Movement, in Lance’s peripheral. It’s Keith, whose slight head turn wouldn’t usually be so conspicuous if not for the stillness around him.

Lance stares at that mop of black hair as the harmonies fall away, one by one, until it’s just the one Gixir musician and her melody. And when she finally does let her instrument go quiet, he almost doesn’t notice, soft as it is.

Like the exhale of a lover, right up against your ear in the morning dawn. Like letting go. Like allowing your fingers to slip from the cliff’s edge, after eons of holding on. Of refusing to dive in.

And in that second, in that pause where the room and its occupants are left in a pulsing silence, is when an all-too familiar ache sinks its claws into Lance.

He watches as Keith’s eyes slip closed, reveling in the music, the tension easing around his mouth. Lance watches and thinks, _shit._

_Shit, shit, fucking _shit_._

Distantly, he’s aware that the musicians have gone back to playing, that the crowd is once again flowing across the floor.

And yet all he’s thinking of is how deeply and desperately he wants to take Keith’s hand in his.

How he wants to pull them to the middle of room, to have Keith moving with him, to have him pressing close and yet yielding to Lance’s hands. He wants their fingers tangled together. He wants to put his hands on Keith’s waist, on his jaw, on his lower back—that dip in his spine. He feels it yank at the space behind his bellybutton, this desire.

Lance wants to push in against the stiffness in Keith’s shoulders and the flinty arch of his brows until he looks exactly like this—mellow and raw, just on the right side of vulnerable.

_God fucking dammit, Kogane_. Lance presses a fist to forehead. _Every time. Every single time I think I’m over it, he—he just—_

Keith raises his head, as if he feels the eyes on him. He turns his head enough for Lance to see his full profile, enough that it would only take a flick of his eyes to peer into the shadowed balcony.

Lance watches from above, for one, two, three beats. And then he leaves.

If Keith looks, all he will see is a half-empty glass, sitting on the railing.

_it’s not like that_

_we’re just friends_

_I’m not—I don’t—_

he_ doesn’t—_

He tries to push it to the back of his mind. Tries so hard to ignore it. But Keith is always _there,_ and he wears away at Lance’s denial, unknowingly, completely naturally. He chips it down with every toothy smile, every snarky quip, with the brush of their shoulders and the clasp of their hands in victory.

Endjha is where he can’t pretend anymore.

He wakes the morning of the mission with lead in his gut, inexplicable. He was rough-housing with Keith just yesterday after training, but try as he might, he can’t muster up that same lightheartedness for the mission.

It only gets worse when the team splits. There’s some confusion over the abrupt invitation to a tour, but soon everyone but him and Keith are heading to the conference room. Lance watches them go, teeth worrying at his lip. The farther they draw away the more exposed he feels. He tries to shake it off.

The tour guide is perfectly amicable. All smiles. She leads them through the building’s high-ceilinged rooms; its ballrooms and stately offices.

He listens to her talk. With every word, Lance’s hands grow clammy. Her voice never wavers from its pleasant lilt, but the way she says, _betrayal of the West,_ and _the rights we—they were owed,_ practically reeks of anger.

Subconsciously, he firmly places himself between her and Keith.

Keith seems at ease, though, even when Lance quietly hints at all of this. So he thinks that maybe he just ate something bad this morning. Or that he’s tired, or—or something. If their resident paranoiac thinks they’re fine, then they probably are.

That’s the last time he doubts himself.

After: he awakens and says he doesn’t remember much. It’s mostly true. He can’t recall anything past the moment they were surrounded.

But he does remember one thing:

He remembers seeing guns, seeing where they were aimed. He remembers panic and fear, beyond any measure he’s experienced before. Remembers his mind going blank, body moving without conscious decision, and the next thing he knows is Keith, yelling.

Keith, on the floor where Lance pushed him. Keith, reaching out to him.

Keith, with something like heartbreak on his face.

_this is where Lance is forced to acknowledge that he wants more_

_has _always_ wanted _

_more_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lance: I hate him he’s NOT my soulmate  
Lance: okay so I don’t hate him  
Lance: ok so maybe I want him to be my soulmate—that does mean he is! The jerk. I hate him  
Me: *looks into the camera like I’m on the office*
> 
> [ASRAVINE](https://asravine.tumblr.com/) MADE ART FOR [THE BALCONY SCENE](https://asravine.tumblr.com/post/189531615095/like-the-exhale-of-a-lover-right-up-against-your) I'M--


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *jaws theme*
> 
> [listen to this, for this chap, chap 6, and chap 7. just put it on repeat. make yourself cry like i did.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiinVuzh4DA)

Keith won’t look at him.

It’s been a couple days since he woke up and _Keith won’t look at him._

He doesn’t understand—everything was fine when he came out of the pod, Keith was loud, hissing at Hunk and glaring at Shiro like normal. Except for that oddly long hug at the beginning, he snarked and sighed at Lance like it was any other day.

And now it’s as if—as if he’s _avoiding_ Lance.

During the meeting on the bridge the morning after, he looked stiff and on-edge, said nothing but a couple terse questions, looked at nothing but the holoscreens.

“Is there…something you’re worried about, Keith?” Shiro asked.

“No,” Keith replied, and Lance’s mind went, _lie lie lie._

And then the guy went off to extract Ykobir crystals and didn’t even bother to say bye. Just made a weak-ass attempt at a smile. And when he came back? Nothing. Besides a couple words about “being careful”—as if Lance was a newbie—before he went off to—to _take a nap? _What? Hunk even complained to him that Keith’s attention had been shot to hell the entire mission. If _that_ wasn’t out of character, then Lance will eat his face masks.

He’s been wracking his brain for a reason, an explanation, for the past days, and all he’s come up with is…well, Endjha.

Jumping in front of Keith is the only action he’s done to the guy, so maybe…

Keith does hate people sacrificing themselves for him. Hates it when people leave him.

Lance chews moodily on a strand of gourmet seaweed. The table before him is laid out with brightly-coloured dishes; it took a while to get accustomed to the taste, but now the seaweed is probably his guilty pleasure. He really needs to know how the Mer season it.

A current of water rushes by him: Plaxum, swimming by to drop down onto the seat next to him. There’s a coral lollipop in her mouth. She runs her gaze over him, scrutinizing. “You certainly look like you’re having fun. What’s wrong? Is the food disagreeing with you?”

He shakes his head, air bubble bobbing with the motion. “Just. Thinking about the mission tomorrow. Those underwater volcanoes of yours sound alarming.”

“You’ll be fine. What you _should_ be worried about is that other planet you’re dropping by—Uruii, right? That one has rabid, carnivorous animals _guarding_ their volcanoes.”

“Great. That’s—thanks. Really eased my worries there, Plaxum.”

She beams at him. “Sure thing. Now tell me why you’re _actually_ brooding here alone, when there are plenty of Mer sizing you up on the dancefloor.”

He sighs. “I’m just not in the mood to entertain tonight. Sorry.”

“Hm. That’s too bad. You’re going to break so many hearts.”

Lance rolls his eyes. “Sure.”

“I wonder, though,” Plaxum hums, “if this mood of yours has to do with a certain red paladin?”

He spits out the seaweed. “Who told you?” he demands.

“Oh! So, Pidge was right?”

He stands. “I’m going to kill her.”

Plaxum pulls him down. “Aw, c’mon, Lance. She was just worried about you. Sit down, sit! Tell me about this boy. What’s he done that’s got you all worked up?”

He…ends up spilling everything. About Endjha, about waking up and seeing Keith’s face first, those eyes staring up at him. About the days after, the stony conversations—if they could even be called conversations. Of how Keith had hovered and yet been distant when Lance had set out this morning, standing farther away than the others, staying long enough to see Lance into Blue before practically running off to patrol.

“I don’t know what I did wrong,” Lance whines into his fifth plate of cake, though it makes him feel oddly— “Wait, is this alcoholic _cake?_ Plaxum, did you drug me?”

“You picked those out that yourself. I assumed you knew what it was you were eating, honey.”

“I am surrounded by traitors,” he bemoans. “And I’m going to have the worst headache tomorrow. I have a mission! A mission, Plax!”

“Aw, poor baby,” she croons. “We have a restorative for that; I’ll drop by tomorrow morning, don’t worry. But you know what I think you _really_ need?”

“What?”

“I think you need to kiss him,” she says brightly.

“…I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” he asks blearily. “Because I think I heard you say I should—”

“Kiss him.” She nods, confident. “Tell him how you feel, sweetie! I don’t know why you haven’t already; it’s obviously eating at you.”

“Because we’re not like that?” he sputters. “And he has a soulmate? Have you forgotten about the universe’s literal fate for every one of us?”

Plaxum opens and closes her mouth. “Hold up. You two_ aren’t soulmates?”_

“No! Where’d you get that idea?”

“I—the way you talked about him…and Pidge said…” She flounders, clearly flummoxed. “I—okay, nevermind that. My bad. What I said still stands. What good will it do you to just sit around moping? Ask him about why he’s so standoffish, at the _very_ least.”

“But what if he, like, hates me? I don’t want to hear that,” Lance spoons another piece of cake, eats it pathetically. “What if he doesn’t want to hang around me because I almost died? What if he thinks I’m weak? I can’t have him thinking that, Plax, he can’t realize I’m—that I’m—”

“That you’re what, Lance?”

“That I’m less!” he wails, mouth full of water cake—how did they even _make_ this? They don’t have ovens! It’s enraging.

Plaxum frowns. God, she’s pretty even when she’s mad. She’s just like Ke— “You are _not_ less, Lance McClain. Nobody thinks you are, not me and definitely not Keith. I’ve never even met him, and I can tell you that.”

“How?”

“From what I’ve heard? He seems like the type to not give people the time of day unless they were on his level.”

Lance considers this. “Hmm, yeah, that’s true. He didn’t notice me when I was a cargo pilot, but now that we’re both paladins, he likes hanging out with me. Oh, shit, Plax, he likes—we’re friends, Plax, he’s my _friend_. But he’s also my rival? How does that work?”

“That’s not what I—” she sighs. “Okay, let’s run with that. He’s your friend, and friends tell each other things, yes? Like when they’re worried about something? Like how you’re worried about him right now? Wouldn’t the both of you feel better knowing what the other is thinking?”

He thinks this over. Then groans and faceplants onto the table.

“You know I’m right.”

“I do,” he grunts. “I hate it.”

She sighs sympathetically. Snags a plate of cake for herself and spears a piece of it on her fork. She toasts him with it. “To a successful conversation between you two, universe be willing. Mm, hey, this is tasty!”

He loves Plax, really, but sometimes he also kind of hates her.

Lance can honestly say that he has not missed this.

This being, of course, trailing after an irate Keith as he stubbornly tries to finish a mission by himself.

From the moment Coran announced that it’d be the two of them on this mission, Keith has been keeping his back to Lance. Running off to his lion, landing and making his way into the undergrowth first, giving curt replies under his breath so Lance has to strain to hear—it’s like he wants to forget Lance is even there.

Lance chews the inside of his cheek. Silently curses Plaxum, and goes for it: “Listen, is there something you want to tell me, man?

“No,” Keith replies, short. “Why?”

Lance catches up with him, leaning in to try and catch his eyes. “You’ve been kind of weird the past few days.”

“Weird how?”

The next three seconds are a blur, but when they’re both staring after a yellow rabbit-thing bouncing away, Keith blushing to his ears, Lance almost gives up right there.

What is _up_ with him?

“Weird like _that_,” Lance replies.

Keith stomps off, going back to being largely uncooperative as Lance tries to pry him open.

“Is this about what happened on Endjha?” he blurts out, half fed-up with it all. Keith isn’t even _trying._

“No.”

Lance frowns at his tone. “Because if you’re mad at me for taking the bullet, I’m not apologizing.” He’s lying, he’s such a liar, he’d definitely apologize if that’s what’ll fix this. He won’t begrudge Keith if he didn’t like seeing Lance bleed out in front of him.

And Keith, focused on scanning the area, says, “Why would I ever be mad at you?” like that’s a fucking normal thing to say.

Lance’s body fights with itself; does it blush or does it get angry or does it just fucking shut down?

“What?” he croaks.

Keith visibly tunes back in. He blushes—oh good, even the idiot didn’t miss what he said. “I mean, for something like that—you saved my life. Why would I be mad about that?”

“You mean you aren’t?”

“No, of course not. That’d be incredibly stupid.”

Lance hates how the relief nearly knocks him off his feet. God, he’s—he’s whipped. Shit. He actually can’t deny it. “I just…wasn’t sure. ‘Cause you haven’t really…looked me in the eye recently. And you’re more…paranoid? Anytime either of us have missions. It’s like you think something bad is gonna happen. Hunk said that on the crystal mission, your focus was shot to hell—you almost chopped off his head and then Shiro’s leg.”

He laughs, uncertain. Keith doesn’t laugh with him. “Dude?”

“What did Slav say the sign looked like again?”

Lance shows him. He goes back to digging through grass and dirt, goes back to ignoring everything but the mission. Lance feels a burst of helpless irritation.

“You know you can tell me things, right?”

“I know.”

“Like, we’re friends, right?” he asks, desperate. “Keith, are you—”

“Can we not do this, right now?” Keith interrupts, gruff and cold and—Lance hates it.

He’s trying, but Keith is stone-walling him. It’s beginning to feel like he’s trespassing, entering where he’s not wanted.

It feels like he’s not wanted, period.

In the lion, he tries one last time: Do you trust me? Do you trust me with whatever’s going on with you? Do you, Keith?

He gets his answer.

He’s so hurt that he doesn’t even wait for Red to set his jaw on the floor before jumping out. He doesn’t debrief, doesn’t get his post-mission snack, doesn’t do anything beyond stripping out of his armor and burrowing into his bed.

“Stupid, stupid,” he whispers into his pillow. “Stupid Keith. Stupid _me._”

Maybe they’re not that close. Maybe he has this all wrong.

He falls into a fitful sleep, feeling like a fool.

When he wakes up from his nap, he considers not showing up tonight. Considers leaving Keith sitting on the dais by himself. Would he even show up? Maybe he’d be glad for the break. Or would he power up the projections himself and try and name them on his own? He gets them wrong so often; sometimes Lance thinks he does it on purpose. Would he scowl, then, frustrated that he couldn’t get them right? Would he leave, upset with Lance for dipping?

Lance gets up.

“I, uh. I didn’t think you’d show up.”

_Almost didn’t_, Lance thinks, _except I thought of you in here alone, in this huge empty space and I— _“Sorry I walked out like that,” he begins.

Keith stops him right there, looking—looking contrite. Like _he’s_ sorry. He says, “Don’t apologize,” says, “It’s never your—it’s not your fault.”

Lance stares at him because he swears the guy was about to say, ‘It’s _never your fault_.’

God—how? How does Keith—how can he just _say_ these things, how can he just reach right in and pluck out the moments where it hurt the most—

_it’s no one’s fault but your own, cadet._

He’s always leaving Lance off-kilter, in the best way possible.

“I’m the one who’s sorry,” Keith continues. “You were just. Worried for me, and I…”

“It’s fine, Keith, I get it.”

“No, I—I owe you an explanation.”

Lance shakes his head. Keith owes him nothing he hasn’t already given. “You really don’t, buddy—”

“We’re friends, right?”

Keith is looking at him. Facing him straight-on. He’d never thought you could miss the sight of someone’s eyes before, never thought he’d find a relief in another’s irises, another’s gaze.

It’s such a small gesture, but Lance…has always just wanted Keith to see him.

“We’re friends,” Keith tells him. “And I trust you.”

It—it’s not only in the words that he uses, not just the declaration itself that spears right into Lance’s core. It’s the way Keith is staring at him.

Like he’s worth this trust. Like he’s worth the words from a boy who doesn’t speak so much as _do_, who struggles with letting people in. Keith gazes at him like Lance has already made it inside.

And just for a second, just for a moment, Lance starts to wonder.

He starts to wonder, _maybe I can have more._

He starts to think, _maybe maybe maybe he’d be mine, maybe he’d be mine to keep—_

And the universe says:

_Pray that he isn’t._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the universe is a bitch (I’m the universe here)
> 
> **you know what's coming next.**


	6. Chapter 6

Keith is begging.

He’s drenched in his own blood, broken in ways Lance can’t patch together. He breathes death; it rattles around in his throat, it etches itself in the crease between his brows.

And yet he begs Lance to save himself.

“Please, Lance, _please_.”

Lance is crying.

Silent, half-shocked, entirely involuntarily. He _wants_ to laugh, _wants_ to scream, _wants_ to pull the robeast’s circuits through its eyes, disembowel it screw by screw.

He wants to tell Keith that he can’t go, baby, he really can’t, not in a million years would he do that, not on his life would he abandon this boy.

“I’m not leaving you,” he says, swears.

Keith looks at him like Lance is killing him.

Minutes later, Lance thinks he might as well have.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the aftermath.

The main difference, Lance decides, between Earth hospitals and Olkari medcentres, is that the latter has better lighting.

And that it has better life-saving procedures. Obviously. But aside from that, it’s got to be the lighting. None of that dumb, glaring florescent shit that makes you look sallow and de_ad_—

Lance exhales. Inhales and holds. Does it all over again. He doesn’t let himself think.

Hunk’s sitting next to him on the floor. There’s that, too—the floor is weirdly comfortable. The Olkari tech almost seems to curve up around him, like it knows. Like it’s sorry. He wouldn’t be surprised; everything gains sentience around the Olkari, sooner or later.

Hunk’s arm is warm where it’s pressed against Lance’s. They haven’t changed out of their armor. None of them.

Pidge, for once, isn’t on her tablet. She sits quietly, knees drawn up, face hidden in her arms. She’s so small. Lance thinks she might sink into the wall behind her, might just bury herself in the tech.

Shiro and Coran stand by the windows of the operating room. They haven’t moved since Allura went in there with half a dozen doctors, a tank of quintessence, and Keith’s limp body—no, with _Keith._ He’s still in there, it’s not just a body. Not yet—not _now_, if Allura is successful. If they’re lucky.

If Keith isn’t Lance’s soulmate.

God, he has never wanted that to be true more than he does right in this moment.

He wants Keith to be fated to someone else. With someone who smiles gently and laughs even softer, with someone who’s never fought a war, with someone who likes forests and hates the oceans. Someone who’d rather hike than swim, with someone steady and nice and definitively _not Lance._

He wants Keith to be fated to live. Doesn’t want to be the reason Keith dies.

He rubs his wrists. There’s still a chance, he thinks fervently. He may have Keith’s last words in his genes, in his blood, in his lifeforce—but Keith’s wrists don’t bear Lance’s last words, that much is clear.

So there’s still a chance, right? Maybe—maybe Keith still gets to live, still gets time to meet whoever’s written on his wrists. Maybe this is the end for Lance, but not for Keith.

Maybe the universe will be kind this time, just this once, just for Keith please please _please_—

“They’re lowering him in,” Coran says. His voice is gentle, but tension still skyrockets at his announcement.

“Allura managed to harness it, then?” Hunk asks.

Coran shakes his head. The corners of his eyes are tight. “We can’t know for sure. It’s tricky business, purifying quintessence enough for safe handling. Let alone for direct treatment like this.”

Hunk slumps, disheartened.

“We have to wait and see,” Shiro says, sounding like he’s galaxies away. “Have to just stand here…and wait.”

Coran looks at him, concern pulling his eyebrows low. He takes Shiro by the elbow and wordlessly leads him over the chairs placed opposite to the observation window. He guides Shiro down into one. Shiro sits, mechanically.

Lance can’t stomach looking at him. All he sees is, _your fault your fault he’s like that your fault everyone’s like that your fault _Keith’s_ like that._

Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Repeat.

He puts his head in his hands and his hands between his knees.

And he prays.

_Bring him back, please bring him back and I swear I won’t ask for more, I’ll never ask for more, ever again. Just bring him back._

_Bring him back._

Three things happen in succession:

One: Keith’s heart flatlines.

Two: Allura lurches forward desperately and slams her hands against the tank, eyes glowing white.

Three: Lance’s wrist _burns_.

The team are on their feet, pressed up against the glass and shouting, but Lance is too shell-shocked, too horrified to move. He’s caught between the stinging on his wrist and the sight of Pidge, Coran, Hunk, and Shiro, all calling for Keith, shouting at him through the glass like the force of their pleading will save him.

His wrist goes numb. The pain stops.

He doesn’t want to look.

Trembling, he pulls his suit sleeve back. He bares his skin and sees—

Coran gives a shout. “His vitals are back online, he’s stabilizing! It’s working, good gods, the princess did it!”

Everyone is crying, falling to their knees. Through the window, Allura tears her surgical mask off, tears streaming, and grabs the nearest Olkari in a fierce hug. Above her head: a monitor, all lights flashing green, readouts stable.

In the vat of orange liquid: Keith breathes. Air bubbles float up from his mask.

Lance breathes with him.

Oh god, oh thank god. It’s not—it’s still Keith, he’s still here, he’s fine. He’s going to be fine.

Lance looks down at his wrist again.

_I’m not dreaming, right?_

The universe decides to be merciful—it gives Keith back, and in that moment something inside Lance heals over.

And something else shrivels into black little husks.

Because this means he’s right. It means the _I love you_ might have been Keith’s dying words to _Lance_, but not his dying words _period._ It means someone else out there bears that honor, that burden. And it’s not Lance.

He tells himself that’s what he wanted.

Hunk hates the sound his boots make.

_Thunk, thunk, thunk._

The castle makes it worse, magnifies the noise like a concert hall. A concert hall that plays a morbid song of sorrow and fragile hope, where he’s the soloist.

He never thought that one day, he’d miss the sound of Lance and Keith in the distance, screaming and laughing with each other.

But with some luck and hope, he’ll be hearing it all again, sooner rather than later.

He walks onto the bridge to see that the rest of the team have arranged themselves around the dais.

“Lance is still…in the medbay,” he says. “He won’t leave.”

_He won’t leave Keith, _he means. The team nods. They get it.

“That’s alright.” Shiro smiles wanly. “I feel better knowing there’s someone watching over…”

“Yeah.” Hunk exhales. “God, this is hard.”

Pidge reaches out and slips her small hand into his. She squeezes. “I know what you mean. The hard part’s over, but…”

“But what if?” he finishes. “Right? Just—_what if_. I keep thinking about it. What if we’d been faster?”

“What if I’d seen the error on the nav system?” Pidge adds quietly.

“What if I’d allowed you to take your lions instead?” Allura.

“What if I hadn’t put them on rotation together?” Coran.

“What if I’d gotten them out sooner?” Shiro. “What if I hadn’t made that mistake early on, moving that piece of rubble, pushing it onto Keith—making him bleed just that much more.”

“…Yeah.” Hunk rubs his eyes. “Yeah, exactly.”

After a long, pained silence, Coran reminds them that Kolivan will be calling soon. They try and gather themselves into some semblance of order.

Allura breaks away to circle the dais. She steps onto it. Lifts her hands to command the controls.

Hunk waits for her to initiate a call.

Her hands form into fists instead, her knuckles white; she scrapes them over the controls, lets them fall to her sides. She bows her head, sorrow in the baring of her nape, in its surrender.

“When I called you to become paladins,” she begins, whisper-tight, “I was a fool.”

“Princess…”

“I was a _fool_,” she repeats, a little more viciously. “It may be selfish of me, but had I known I would come this close to losing the _only_—” her voice shatters, she swallows— “the only family I had left…if I had known…”

She exhales, shuddering. “I would’ve delivered you all back to Earth myself.”

She closes her eyes, screws them shut, turns her face away from them. Tears slip down her cheeks.

It is Pidge who approaches her. She forgoes the steps; swings a leg onto the dais and crawls onto it.

“Allura,” she calls softly, her small fingers wrapping around Allura’s elbow. “Don’t say that. We don’t regret being here. Right?”

“I don’t,” Shiro pledges, Hunk’s own affirmation following his. “We’re here because we believe in what we’re doing. In _you._”

“And it is because of _me_ that you fight, that you are hurt, that Keith and Lance are—” Allura claps a hand over her mouth; a half-choked cry leaves her.

Coran reaches up to grip her free hand. His face is drawn and older than Hunk remembers it ever being.

He tells her, “It is _not_ your fault.”

Gently, as a father to a daughter, he tells her, “There is no one in this room who is at fault for what happened. We can blame ourselves all we like. And yet the cold, hard fact of it, is that we were powerless. We can only do so much.”

He looks at them with all six-hundred years of his life reflected in his eyes. He is old, _ancient;_ prevailing. And he looks at them like he can’t bear to tell them that this pain never gets easier.

Hunk drops his gaze.

“The universe leaves us very little time to grieve,” Coran says softly. “And even less time to love another. And so we must be glad that we have met, that we have been given a chance to forge bonds like this, that we have a love strong enough to hurt like this—a love that is strong enough to outlast the pain.”

Allura’s gone quiet, still. He cradles her hand in his and waits.

“…Forgive me,” she whispers. She lifts her head to catch Shiro’s eyes; Hunk’s; Coran’s; leans into Pidge at her side. “I didn’t mean all that. I—I would never have given this up.”

“It’s okay. There’s nothing to forgive, Princess.” Hunk gives her a watery smile. “And no offense, but I wouldn’t have let you leave us behind like that.”

“Coming from him, that says a lot,” Shiro teases.

It still sounds shaky, like he’s too unsettled to joke, so Hunk makes himself huff, mock-offended. Shiro breathes out a laugh, a bit more at ease.

He fixes Allura with a level look. “We’re here, Allura. We’re not going anywhere.”

She takes in their faces, their open body languages and the trust written there. Something like vulnerability steals over her features before she draws her strength around herself like the folds of her royal cape.

She nods. “I’m ready.”

Coran smiles. “There’s my queen.”

The call with Kolivan goes well. He’s taciturn and reticent with his information, but when is he not? He promised to let Keith off Blade rotations for a whole month, though, so that’s good.

Hunk tells Lance so.

Lance remains quiet, dim-eyed.

Hunk glances from Keith’s pod to Lance, sitting beside him and wrapped in a threadbare blanket.

“So, um, so unless there’s an immediate Coalition mission,” he continues, “Keith should have as much time as he wants to relax. I know he’ll probably be bored out of his mind soon enough, though. Remember that day Shiro grounded him and didn’t let him train? And you were stuck helping me and Pidge clean out the guest bedrooms? He got so bored without us—without _you_, that he set up a trap for Shiro that spanned the entire corridor from his bedroom to the elevator” He chuckles. “I’ve never seen Shiro so aggravated; I thought he was going to have a stroke. At least this time, you’ll be there to rein your soulmate in—”

“Not his soulmate,” says Lance; the first words he’s uttered in a day.

Hunk waits for an explanation that doesn’t come. “I…don’t get it, man, sorry. I—you—his words are on your wrists…you showed us, remember?”

For a second, he thinks Lance is going to sink into that fugue state again, but the guy rouses out of it.

“He’s alive, isn’t he?” Lance bares his left wrist, the _I love you_. Hunk winces at the sight of it. “If he was mine, he’d be dead.”

“But he said your soulmarks.”

Lance shrugs. “Coincidence. Or maybe I’m one of those people who get stuck as half of an unrequited soulpair. I hear the odds are one in ten million.”

Hunk has heard of those stats, too. Heard enough to know it was bullshit, just human error in recognizing soulmates.

“Either way, _I_ didn’t say his soulmarks. It’s not a match. And I’m fine with that; he’s alive. He’ll get to meet his own soulmate, and I’ll…”

“You’ll what?”

Lance smiles, a horrifyingly depressing sight. “Move on? He said he loved me. If I get that much, if it’s just ‘til he meets someone else…I think I’ll be fine.”

Hunk…really begs to differ.

Lance probably doesn’t realize it, but Hunk saw the way he faded with every minute that Keith was in the operating room. It scared him, made him wonder how long his best friend would last without Keith.

If that’s not a soulmate thing, then Hunk doesn’t know what is.

“You’re sure about this?” he asks once more. “I just…you guys are made for each other.”

“I didn’t say his marks, Hunk.”

“How do you know? Did you see his wrists?”

Lance looks annoyed; finally, some emotion. “Whatever it was I said, it wasn’t anything on his wrist. He didn’t react.”

“That’s not good enough. How are you supposed to judge based on that? You guys were—it was hardly the best place to notice something like that. It’s a surprise _you_ even noticed it. He probably didn’t process it, I mean, he _was_ dying.”

Lance jerks.

Hunk is an idiot. Why did he bring up the death thing? “I—sorry.”

“…It’s fine,” Lance mumbles, even though it’s clearly not fine in the slightest. “It’s over, anyway.”

“Right…”

On a regular day, he’d push. Lance gets twisted up in his mind a lot and over the years, it’s become Hunk’s job to help the guy unravel it.

But with Keith in the pod, with Lance sitting vigil by its base, with everything that has happened in the past twenty-four hours…

He’ll just have to hope Keith isn’t as dumb.

Lance was prepared to put it all behind him, this soulmate business.

Was prepared to pretend he’s never fantasized about Keith being his, was prepared to accept whatever he has in this moment, was prepared to never ask for more.

But it turns out, as usual, Keith fucking Kogane has no respect for Lance’s commitments.

Keith wakes up and the first thing he does is ruin all of Lance’s hard work in repressing his emotions. Just, fucking bulldozes past it all, just goes, _you idiot, you _are_ my soulmate, _like it’s that easy.

Lance would be mad, but he’s too much in love for that. Too happy, too giddy with relief, too busy staring at a _very alive_ Keith.

Too busy trying not to cry as he listens to Keith say, _you’re more than enough._

And,_ of course I’d love you still._

And,_ you are everything I want._

Lance’s goals, his promises, everything that he is, starts and ends with Keith. Always has.

Yet somehow, he’s never noticed that the _reverse_ was true for Keith. That whenever he had looked away, was when Keith would steal a glance. That when he decided to run in a different direction (to Allura, to any remotely attractive alien) was when Keith started trailing after him.

Parallel lines. Or maybe asymptotes: close but never close enough. Never on the same page, but stuck in the same book, the same story, living the same pattern of leading and following, taking turns being the north to the other’s compass.

In some other universe, they stay that way forever.

In some other universe, their potential is left untouched, undiscovered.

In some other universe, they spend years orbiting each other. Years where they miss each other by an inch, a single breath, a confession left unsaid. In some other universe, their gravitational force inches them apart every day until eventually it swings them away, sends them off in two different directions.

But that universe is not where they are.

Where they are is here:

In a narrow bed, placed in a nook in the wall of a castle that traverses the open waters of the heavens. Under a pile of blankets that Lance has collected on their journey, knitted by thankful aliens or bought off clearance racks in space malls.

They are _here_, Keith-and-Lance, sound asleep with their heads on the same pillow.

They are _here, _hands twisted together and wrists brushing, the words tattooed there nestled against each other.

Where they are, is a much, much happier place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in some other universe, lance is a farmer and keith is alone in space but we don’t talk about that universe. We’ve disowned that universe I don’t know her
> 
> Sorry I couldn’t help sneaking in that slight ref to the tnahp title lol


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now we’re getting to the meaty bit babes!!! It’s all uncharted territory from here

“I told you he wouldn’t buy it,” Lance says. “You’re completely healed.”

“Oh, shut up,” says Keith.

“And you’re a horrible liar to begin with.”

“It didn’t work because you didn’t back me up!”

“Excuse you, I _always _back you up. You gave me nothing to work with this time! How am I supposed to play up your injuries if you come to see him with your hair washed and teeth cleaned and everything?”

“That’s just basic hygiene!”

“We should’ve gone with Plan B,” Lance mutters.

Keith throws his hands up. “You said no to Plan B!”

“Can you blame me? It was a shitty proposal. Literally.”

“I was tired! I’d just come back to life—”

“Oh, so _now_ you want to exaggerate your condition—”

“I _literally_ rose from the dead, Lance—”

“I don’t know why I expected you two to act any differently,” says Shiro, “now that you’re together.”

Keith glares. Lance thinks it looks more like a pout; it’s possible he’s still firmly stuck in the lovesick phase, even if he was just bickering with Keith a second ago. Hunk would roll his eyes out of his eye sockets if Lance told him any of this.

“Look, I wouldn’t ask Lance to go if I knew he wouldn’t be able to handle it.” Shiro claps Keith on the shoulder. “Believe me, I want to give you both the downtime you deserve, but…”

“It’s…” Keith sighs. “It’s okay. I mean, it sucks, but I’m not that hurt over it. Duty and all that.”

Lance puts a hand to his chest. “Ouch. You just wanted to get rid of me this whole time, didn’t you?”

“And I know Lance isn’t too bothered, either,” Keith continues, unconcerned, “because he only likes to pretend that he doesn’t care about everything everywhere so much all the time, when really, he cares so deeply that it’s almost unhealthy.”

“Don’t psychoanalyze me, you unromantic ass.”

“Are you guys sure you like each other?” asks Shiro. “Or do I have to send you to couples therapy just a day after getting your shit together?”

Lance flushes.

“Shiro,” Keith despairs.

“No, really,” says Shiro, “I mean, I’m glad I no longer have to witness the longest, most agonizing game of When Will This Romcom End—”

“_Shiro.”_

“—but you two have always been a little emotionally-stunted in regards to each other, so if we need to sit down and have an honest talk about—”

“If you like your eyeliner at all,” hisses Keith, “you will _shut your mouth right now_.”

Shiro raises an eyebrow.

“So how about that mission, huh?” Lance asks, biting down on his mirth. It never gets tiring seeing two Garrison legends bickering like—well, like siblings. “Need me to rescue a princess? Or a prince?”

Keith scowls harder, and then blinks, like he’s just confused himself with his jealousy. God, Lance loves this dumbass.

“Don’t worry.” He nudges Keith. “You know I’ll turn down any offers of marriage that they offer as a reward.”

“I’m not jealous,” is Keith’s automatic response. It’s cute how he thinks he’s fooling anyone. “I’m just—thinking about your unfailing track record of somehow becoming the damsel-in-distress on almost every mission we go on. So, if anything, the prince or princess will probably rescue _you_.”

Lance steps back. “You would commit lies and slander against your own soulmate?”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Hunk _alone_ has had to pull you out of the mouth of large predators, like, seven times. If you add me, Pidge, Shiro, Allura, and even Coran—that one memorable time with the space flamingo—I’d need ten more hands to count it all.”

“So? How many times has Shiro nearly died of a stroke because you ran off to fight a whole ass army by yourself?” Lance leans in. “Let me be the one to remind you: _hundreds._”

Keith scoffs. “Bullshit.”

“_Not_ bullshit,” says Shiro severely. “Lance is right. At this point, I’m dumping my medical bills on you, you walking heart attack.”

“I am _not_ that bad,” protests Keith. He pauses. “Anymore.”

“The whip cream on your brother’s head says otherwise,” says Lance.

Keith levels a finger at him. “First of all, never refer to his white hair as _whip cream_ ever again. Second, he got that after getting probed by aliens!”

“I hate this conversation with the very essence of my existence,” Shiro says thoughtfully.

“Uh, no. He probably got the hair from spending all that time in space, worried sick over what kind of shit you were getting up to without him,” Lance shoots back at Keith. “Like, for example, getting into a fight with three guys, and also punching Iverson in the face and _kicking his actual balls?”_

“I’m sorry,” says Shiro. “I must have misheard. You did what?”

“Relax, it was only the one time,” Keith says.

Lance snorts. “Yeah, only because you got expelled after.”

_“You got what?”_ asks Shiro dangerously.

Keith pats him on the arm. _“_Chill, Shiro, it’s fine. It was two years ago. It’s not like it matters now.”

Shiro pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Okay. This conversation is being put on hold until further notice because I am _not_ getting arrested for manslaughter today, and Allura would throw me to a weblum if I made her find two new paladins.”

Lance edges behind Keith. Shiro is fast approaching Slav-levels of irritation.

Keith, fearless as ever, only snorts derisively. Absentmindedly, he leans back into Lance.

The genuine _softness_ of the action just about punches the air out of Lance’s chest, and by Alfor’s damn beard, he gets why Keith’s so knife-happy now. If someone ever stole this from Lance, he would eviscerate every living thing in his vicinity.

“Now, the mission,” says Shiro, and Lance stops rewriting his moral code around his soulmate to listen. “We’ve been invited by the Levertans to participate in a ritual, in celebration of their new alliance with us. Levert is a desert planet, and every twenty years, the Levertans throw a festival-slash-ceremony to ask their water deity for a blessing. Since Hunk and Pidge are both caught up in projects with the Olkari and Slav, while Coran and the Princess and I have got a diplomatic meeting on Puig, you’ll be the one to take care of this, Lance.”

“Okay, seems easy enough.” Lance pauses. “Wait, the ritual isn’t dangerous, right?”

“It’s insulting that you’d think I’d let one of you guys anywhere near danger after recent events.”

Keith barks out a laugh. “We’re in space. I don’t know about you, but that’s like a constant, serious danger.”

Shiro calmly reaches over and grabs him by the face, like you would an apple or an egg.

“Shut up,” he says serenely, over the muffled sounds of Keith struggling to free himself. “And no, Lance, the ritual isn’t dangerous. As far as Coran has gathered, you just attend a couple cleansing sessions and then on the big day, you stand there while they pour water on you.”

“Okay, cool,” says Lance. “I’m always down for showering with strange aliens.”

“I’m going with him,” Keith declares, once he’s successfully slapped Shiro’s hand away.

“That—” Lance glances at Shiro— “doesn’t sound like a good idea. Right?”

“You did just get out of the pod,” Shiro points out.

“But as Lance so _helpfully_ pointed out earlier—" Keith jabs a thumb over his shoulder at Lance— “I’m all healed up. Besides, if you let him go down there alone, he’ll say yes to everything they ask of him and somehow, it’ll turn out he’s bound himself mind and body to the damn water god in servitude, and then we’ll never defeat the Galra.”

Lance tugs on a lock of Keith’s hair. “Now that’s just an exaggeration—”

“You don’t have to tell me what I already know,” Shiro says, amused, and the one thing Lance hates about these brothers, is that one moment they’re insulting each other and the next, they’re ganging up on him by _ignoring him and talking about him like he’s not even there. _Like c’mon. He gets enough of this back home on Earth with his own family. “You’re sure you’re recovered enough to go?”

“You literally called me out a couple minutes ago when I tried to play up my injuries.”

“I called you out because you weren’t nearly hurt enough to warrant _Lance_ skipping out on a mission to nurse you back to health, which is a completely different thing from you being physically able to go on a mission yourself.”

Keith huffs; Lance feels the movement against his chest. “If this one is as easy as you make it sound, I could handle it with an arm missing.”

“And I can’t?” Lance asks, affronted.

“Of course you can. That’s the problem. You’d go above and beyond, and we all know how that goes.”

“Again. Pot, kettle.”

Shiro raises his hands. “Alright, enough. Lance, I didn’t want to send you on your own, anyway. If you’re fine with it, then Keith can be your second on this.”

Lance drops his chin onto Keith’s shoulder with a sigh, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “You guys are being too paranoid about this.”

“What, do you not want me to go?” asks Keith, brow raised.

Lance rolls his eyes. “You know I do.”

“Good,” says Keith. He rests his head against Lance’s, and oh, there goes Lance’s heart again. “Because someone needs to keep you alive.”

“Oh my god,” Lance mumbles, “I just realized I’m never going to be rid of you, huh? My overly-protective purple cat soulmate.”

“Call me a cat one more time, I dare you.”

“Not that this isn’t the most infuriatingly adorable thing I have ever witnessed,” Shiro interrupts, “but the Levertans are waiting. Go get suited up; we fly out in twenty.”

“Last one to their lion has to have a fifteen-minute conversation with Slav about particle physics!” Lance yells, turning and sprinting off.

“Wha—you cheated!” Keith sputters. “Get back here!”

Shiro stares after them. After a moment, he comms Allura on the tablet.

“Hey, if I told you to find someone else to lead Voltron, would you be mad—no, like hypothetically, would you—no, I’m not _dying,_ Princess—”

Lance runs up to Blue, snapping on the last of his armor. “Hey, baby girl! Open up for me, before Keith and Red beat us!”

The forcefield vanishes, and Blue obligingly kneels, mouth opening just a little faster than usual. Lance laughs, giving her nose a pat on his way in.

“Hey, guess who just lost?” he says into his comms, cheeky.

A buzz of static. _“You?” _quips Keith.

“Uh, no. I won.”

_“Oh yeah? I’ve been sitting in Red for five minutes.”_

“Bullshit.”

_“I keep a spare set of armor in here.”_ The smile in Keith’s voice is clear._ “While you were busy running around, I went straight here and suited up.”_

“That’s not very fair.”

“_It’s payback for running ahead.”_

“Not my fault you weren’t paying attention.”

_“Not my fault you don’t think ahead.”_

“Okay, you know what?” is Lance’s articulate comeback. “Let’s just check the mission briefing.”

Keith laughs, low and light. Lance doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to hearing it. _“What do you think I’ve been doing the whole time I was waiting?”_

“Smartass,” Lance says under his breath, but it’s fond.

The cockpit lights up around him when he walks in. The screens flicker and a low-grade whine starts up. He settles into his seat and initiates the start-up sequence. “Okay, since you read it already, want to give me the run-down?”

_“Lazy, much?”_

“I prefer efficient.”

_“Whatever you say,” _Keith says, smiling. _“Levert is in the neighbouring system, and the castle will drop us off as close as it can, on its way to Puig. Shouldn’t take too long to fly the rest of the way there. We’ve got coordinates for a landing point outside the capital city, and they’re expecting us in an hour.”_

“Who’re we meeting with?”

_“Queen Lu’hr. Coran’s attached a photo of her.”_

Lance pulls up the picture. “She looks…”

_“Mean?”_

“Stern,” says Lance. “Reminds me of this commander back at the Garrison, actually.”

_“Yeah? Who?”_

“You know, I don’t think she had a name,” Lance muses.

_“How could she not have a name?”_

“She was always just The Commander to me.”

_“Maybe you’re just bad with names.”_

“Who’s the one who taught you the stars again?”

_“I know I’m supposed to say it’s you, but I still don’t remember anything past Yenn X6. So, like, that says something about your teaching skills, don’t you think?”_

Lance opens a video transmission with Keith, just to fix him with a disbelieving look. “Yenn X6 is literally the fifth galaxy we learned.”

Keith shrugs. _“I warned you.”_

“Not sufficiently. Is this why you didn’t remember me at the Garrison? Hey, how many times did it take before Shiro had to stop introducing himself to you?”

_“Haha, very funny. It only took the one time.”_

Lance waits, unimpressed.

_“Okay, so maybe it was like three times,” _Keith grumbles, flushing. _“But that was on purpose; I didn’t want to get to know him.”_

Lance gasps. “You? Anti-social? Shocker.”

_“Shouldn’t we be discussing the mission? You know, the one you just asked me to summarize?”_

“Oh, alright. Do continue.”

A pause. Then, _“Actually, that that all I read up to.”_

Lance can’t hold back his laughter. Keith joins in a second later, failing to remain stoic. When Allura comms them minutes later, they’re slumped over their seats, chuckling weakly.

_“Do I want to know?”_ she asks.

Lance makes a shrill, warbling noise.

_“That’s a no, then. We’ll be flying through the wormhole now. Just thought you’d like to know.”_ She sighs, amused, and cuts the line.

Keith is gasping over their connection. The sound of it makes Lance giddy.

_“My ribs hurt,”_ Keith pants.

“Same.”

_“It wasn’t even that funny.”_

“Not even a little bit.”

_“Lance?”_

“Yeah?”

_“I have a good feeling about this mission.”_

Lance leans back. He sets his hand on the controls and feels—feels love radiate in him. Like hot soup in his stomach, like the sunlight has twined itself into his DNA.

He grins.

“Me too.”

The flight is as boring as he thought it’d be. They resort to desperate measures.

“Okay, my turn.” Lance hums, gaze flicking over Blue’s cockpit. Dashboard, buttons, and panels—he’s picked them all by now. What else is there to—he lands on Keith’s video transmission.

His soulmate is fiddling with something off-screen as he waits for Lance, and a _ping_ goes off in Lance’s head. He smirks, wiping it away when Keith looks up.

“I spy with my little eye something red,” says Lance.

A pause. _“My lion?”_

He shoots Keith a flat look. “So you think I’m stupid, is that it?”

Keith bites back a smile. _“Okay, I take it that it isn’t Red—”_

“Of course it isn’t Red! That’s so obvious. Try again.”

Keith taps a finger on his chin, adopting an exaggerated thoughtful expression. Lance hates that he finds it cute. _“My armor?”_

“_Obvious,” _Lance drawls. “Again.”

_“Blue’s neck guard?”_

“I can’t see the outside of my lion, Keith, c’mon.”

_“The warning on your screen that says you’re running out of quintessence?”_

“The warning—?” Lance does a double-take, panicked. He finds nothing. “Haha, you’re hilarious. No.”

Keith humors him a few more times, but the amusement fades with every wrong guess. The crease between his brows grows more pronounced. Lance watches it deepen with barely-repressed anticipation.

_“Alright,”_ he grouses, _“I give up—what is it?”_

_Yes, finally. _Lance clears his throat, swallowing down the glee.

“This morning,” he says casually, “you looked really cute sleeping in my bed, and if I had a camera then, I would’ve taken so many pictures of the way you sleep curled up with your hands under your chin, like a cat.”

Keith’s blank-faced for a good minute.

And then slowly—almost too slow to see—a flush crawls up his throat and onto his cheeks. He struggles to hold Lance’s gaze, but when Lance lets his lips curl, he groans and drops his face into his hands.

“There it is!” Lance crows. “My something red—my _Red_, get it?”

_“Oh my god, stop. Just.”_ Keith groans into his hands. _“You can’t do that—if you say you see something red, it’s supposed to already be red! You—you can’t make it red _later_.”_

“I believe I just did,” Lance teases. “Looks like I win this round.”

Keith just bends in his seat until he’s nearly out of the feed.

It’s honestly the best thing Lance has seen all day, and he almost misses the incoming subspace call. It’s from Levert. He straightens.

“Incoming.”

_“Yeah, I see it.”_ Keith’s voice betrays none of the embarrassment that was there a second ago.

Lance accepts the call, glancing at the map as he does it. Looks like they’ve hit the edges of Lervertan space.

The face that greets him—and Keith, too, in his own lion—is young. As far as he can tell. The Levertan is blue-skinned. The face is oval, but much longer at the chin than a human’s. The eyes are angular and completely black. The nose starts higher up and is slim, coming to a tapered end. There’s no hair on the face or the head, although the eyelashes are finger-length and fan outwards. Following the curve of the jaw are two wicked-looking scars. The flesh there is pale; long ago healed.

_“Paladins.”_ The Levertan blinks, eyelashes sweeping over high cheekbones. _“I am Re’sl, General of the Citadel Sky Force, and on behalf of my people, I welcome you into our galactic territory.”_

Ah, good old pleasantries. Lance will never get tired of how stilted these people get at the beginning. Or how his own stomach rolls with anxiety.

“Thank you. We’re honoured by your invitation. I’m Lance, paladin of the Blue Lion.”

_“And I’m Keith, paladin of the Red Lion.”_

Re’sl nods. Lance surreptitiously pulls up the mission report. The dossier on Re’sl says: male, seventy years of age (middle-aged, for this species), served in something called the Kxri war, now decorated war hero, promoted to General after the previous one died.

_“You are well met,”_ he says. _“When can we expect you?”_

Keith says, _“ETA ten doboshes.”_

It’s hard to tell, but that might be surprise on Re’sl’s face. _“Your lions travel fast, I see. Voltron’s technology truly must be advanced, to outstrip galactic standards even ten thousand years later.”_

Blue rumbles in Lance’s head. He bites back a smile. “Blue’s pleased to hear you say so.”

_“They’re sentient?”_ Re’sl asks, professionalism cracking under his awe for a second. He pulls it together with a shake of his head. _“Apologies. I am meant to inform you that we have prepped the landing site. You’ll find shuttles waiting to bring you to the Citadel.”_

_“Understood,”_ says Keith. _“Thank you for your cooperation.”_

_“It is our pleasure. We will be glad to receive you soon, paladins.”_

“See you then, General.” And with a smile: “We’d be happy to answer any questions you have about the lions, if there’s time after.”

Re’sl blinks. The corner of his mouth hikes up an inch. _“My thanks. I will take that under consideration.”_

The call cuts out.

Lance lets out a breath. Yup, never going to get used to that.

No other words are exchanged; Keith and him both know the routine and they set out to finish it in the ten minutes left. Ready the lions for landing, check the cargo (gifts for the Levertans), and download mission data packets to their suits.

Lance takes care to familiarize himself with the dossiers. There’s Queen Lu’hr, obviously, but she has a council of ten to advise her. Each councillor hails from a different sector of Levert, selected by the people there to represent them.

And like General Re’sl, they all have a hardened, battle-fresh look to them.

Frowning, he swipes through the other dossiers and yeah—all ten councillors fought in this Kxri war.

“Hey, have you had a look at the extra data packets Coran sent?” he asks Keith. “Like on the culture and history of this planet?”

_“No, why?”_

“It’s just—there’s this Kxri war that keeps cropping up.”

_“Was this a war among themselves? I thought they were supposed to be unified.”_

“No, yeah, they’re unified. Stable. We wouldn’t have allied if they weren’t. I think this war might’ve been with another race. I don’t know, just thought it was interesting.”

Keith hums, thoughtful. _“Well, you can probably ask them when we—dude. Dude, _look_.”_

“Hm?” Lance exits the files and looks out the viewscreen. “What the—”

In the black expanse of space, a bright crescent shimmers into being. Like a time-lapse of the moon, it waxes and swells until a shining blue circle exists where there was previously only emptiness.

Lance peers at it and realizes it’s a planetwide _shield._

Within the translucent blue shield is a beautiful indigo planet. Stretches of flat, desert land, broken only by long, curving mountain ranges. Pink clouds streak across the sky, cotton candy rainclouds.

As they drift closer, a fleet of escort ships emerge from an opening in the shield. The crest of Levert is visible on the hulls.

They’ve arrived.

Duffel slung over his shoulder, Lance steps out of the hovercruiser and is immediately hit with a wall of _heat_. On reflex, he closes up his helmet and takes a deep breath of cold, filtered oxygen. Behind him, Keith swears, stumbling onto the dusty street. Puffs of violet dust drift up from his feet.

“God, that’s hot.” Even through the suit, Lance feels the sun’s rays like a physical blow.

“Yes, it takes some to get used to,” Re’sl says. “Will you be alright?”

Lance takes a couple more breaths then lets his visor retract. He nods. Yeah, that’s bearable. He wasn’t expecting the abrupt change from a climate-controlled interior to a sweltering summer day, but he’s had worse.

“Then, may I present to you,” says General Re’sl, “the Citadel, the crowning jewel of Levert.”

The Citadel is _massive_.

It’s half the size of Allura’s space-castle, but ten times more ostentatious. The architecture is all swooping curves and delicate lines. And it glows. As Lance stares, the building pulses gently with a faint rosy light. Not to mention the five towering statues standing in a ring around the entrance, facing outwards and staring off into the distance. He has no idea who they are, but he thinks they look appropriately regal.

“It’s…um, wow. Really something,” Keith says lamely.

Re’sl snorts quietly. “Come now, you can be honest. It’s nothing I haven’t thought myself.”

Lance looks at him, surprised. The ride to the city had made both parties friendlier to each other, but that was more informality than he’d been expecting from the guy.

“I’m from the eSl clan,” Re’sl explains, seeing his look. “We haven’t much over there. The opulence of the capital can be…discomfiting to me, at times.”

“Huh.” Lance frowns. “Your—sorry, how do you say…?”

“Oh, it’s eSl. Eh-sell, emphasis on ‘sell.’ Come, I’ll tell you about it as we walk.”

The guards salute Re’sl as he passes. They let Lance and Keith in with nothing more than a couple curious glances. The three of them make their way down the wide pathway. The steps of the Citadel loom before them.

“Levert is made up of ten clans,” says Re’sl. “You can usually tell who hails from where by the suffix on their name. For example, mine ends in ‘sl’ as in the eSl clan. We are part of the western clans, with the eWr, the Il, and the Er. The southern clans are the eKut and the Vur. The eastern clans: the eRn, the eHr, and the Yr. That’s where are are, right now. The Citadel is situated right on the border of the eYr and the eHr clans.”

Keith raises a brow. “So…the Citadel doesn’t belong to a single clan.”

“That’s correct. When the clans united thousands of years ago, they built this city to foster peace, and to give the monarch a neutral ground to rule from.”

“It holds up well for being so ancient.”

“Oh, this isn’t the original. We had to rebuild after the war.”

“About that—we were wondering if that was a war among yourselves or…?” Lance trails off. “I mean, feel free to ignore that if it’s rude of me to ask.”

Re’sl shakes his head. “It is fine, we welcome your questions. The war was with an invading species. Unknown origin. It was…extremely difficult to fight.”

“It? As in one entity?”

“Yes. We count ourselves lucky that it was only the one.” A dark look passes over features. “Had there been another one or—Sal’ra forbid—a whole army? Well, I suspect there would be no reason for you to visit Levert.”

Lance shares a look with Keith. Okay, that didn’t sound sinister at all. “How long ago was this?”

“Fifteen of your years, I believe.”

“That’s…pretty recent. Most civilizations take longer to recuperate from something like that.”

“We’re a hardy race.” Re’sl grins. It pulls at his scars. “How about this? I’ll send you a data packet on the Kxri war. As for now, I do believe Queen Lu’hr is waiting for us. Please follow me.”

“We welcome you to our home, paladins.”

Like Re’sl and just about every Levertan Lance has seen on his way here, Queen Lu’hr stands two full heads taller than the average human. She’s blue-skinned, too, but with a slight purple cast to her features.

When she smiles, it’s gentle and genuine, and Lance feels bad for calling her stern. Already, she’s nothing like that commander.

Lance bows. At his side, Keith follows suit, helmet tucked under his arm. “Thank you for your hospitality, Your Majesty. I’m Lance, and this is Keith.”

Queen Lu’hr nods cordially. An attendant stands behind her, hands clasped. “We are excited to have you join us for the Cleansing, and for this alliance we will foster between us.”

“We’re glad for this, too,” he replies. “And the honor’s all mine.”

She smiles and inclines her head towards a corridor off to their right, a wordless invitation to walk with her. They fall into step, with Re’sl bringing up the rear.

Lance clears his throat. “The rest of our team extends their apologies for their absence, and for the short notice. There were some pressing matters to attend to, and we had to split the missions between us.”

“It is no matter,” Lu’hr assures him. “We understand the delegation of duty during wartime. The festival is not so important as to demand the presence of all of Voltron.”

“It isn’t?”

“It is a cultural celebration. A homage to the ancient times when we worshiped Sal’ra, a mythical deity. We thought you might like to participate, but we wouldn’t have been offended if you declined.”

“I see.”

“We are to have a council meeting on the morrow,” she says. “You’re invited to it; your part in this ritual will be explained in more detail then. Would you do us the honor of attending?”

“Of course. Actually, I do have some questions about it, so that’d be great.”

“Wonderful! Now then—” Lu’hr comes to a stop at a fork in the hallway— “I must leave you here. I have some duties to attend to and, unfortunately, they cannot be delayed any longer.”

Lance shakes his head. “We understand. Thank you for meeting us.”

“It was my pleasure.” She gestures to the attendant on her left. “Ku’yr will show you to your rooms. When the sun rises, she will arrive to escort you to the meeting.”

Lance and Keith bow once more, and Lu’hr departs down the other corridor. Re’sl quickly transmits a data packet to Lance’s vambrace and then jogs after the queen, lifting his hand in goodbye.

“Your quarters are just down this way, sirs,” Ku’yr says softly. “Please come with me. We apologize in advance if they’re not to your liking; our accommodations are almost at full capacity. The celebration has brought many clan nobles to the Citadel.”

“That’s fine. Trust me, we’ve slept in worse conditions.” Lance looks over his shoulder at Keith. “Remember that time we accidentally set up camp in a giant bird’s nest?”

Keith snorts. “How could I forget the sheer terror or waking up to a huge beak about to swallow me whole?”

The Levertans have placed them next to each other. Keith immediately disappears into his room. Lance squints at the double doors to his quarters and considers the chances that it will be just as ornate as the rest of the Citadel.

He turns to thank Ku’yr, who bows silently, before entering the room.

“Ah, jeez,” is his first reaction.

Okay, so the chances were pretty high. He whistles, dropping his bag by the door.

Well, first things first, he has temperature controls, thank _god._ He promptly sets it to blast cold, delicious air and yanks off his helmet, sighing.

The room boasts a bed that’s big enough for a baby weblum, its bedspread and duvet a startling deep blue. Gauzy drapes are hung literally everywhere, on the floor-to-ceiling windows and surrounding the bed. In the center of the room is a gold-gilded table and chair set. Plush carpets in vivid violets and iridescent indigos decorate the floors.

He throws open a random set of doors and yup—a closet that could double as his _home_ back on Earth, great, not excessive at _all_.

Another set of doors leads to the bathroom. He glances around. Toilet, sink, huge bathtub, all shiny and marble, and a full-length mirror. But where’s the—

Lance walks around a wall oddly placed in the middle of the room.

His jaw drops and blood drains from his face.

There’s a forest—he’s staring at a huge, lavish, flourishing botanical tropical garden thing—because the shower _is made of glass._ The walls—there are no walls. Just, fucking floor to ceiling windows. Windows that overlook a tropical _park, _right in the middle of the Citadel. How’d they grow something like that in their climate, let alone in a government building? And _why?_

He thinks he can spot a pathway far down below, between a gap in the trees. People _walk through here._ An exotic bird flies past, long feathers trailing behind. Jesus, which exhibitionist built this thing? The floor is normal, but—

“I am not showering in here,” he states, stomping back into his room.

There’s a last set of doors. He strides over to it and flings them open.

Keith stands on the other side, hands outstretched. He blinks. “Lance?”

“Ugh,” Lance replies. “Does yours have a shower?”

“Yeah?”

Lance is already inside, making a beeline for his bathroom. “Oh, thank god. It’s normal.”

“Of…course it is?”

Keith is standing by the connecting doors when Lance comes back out. He looks adorably puzzled. Lance opens his mouth to tell him so, when his surroundings sink in.

“Wait.” He spins around. Laughs. “Dude, I think you got the attaching servant’s quarters.”

Keith scowls. “These are _not_ servant’s quarters.”

“Are you serious?” Incredulous, Lance gestures wildly at everything—from the plain concrete floor, to the single window letting in an ashamedly minimal amount of light, to the narrow bed shoved into the corner. There are no doors to a walk-in closet; only a chest of drawers by the bed. “Servant’s room is putting it gently. Honestly, it looks like a prison.”

“Actually, it’s a lot comfier than a prison.”

Lance raises a finger. Drops it. “I’m not going to ask why you sound so confident in that assessment. You’re not sleeping here.”

Keith arches a brow. “I’m not?”

“No,” Lance says decisively. “Putting aside the fact that this room is literally so sad—we’re _soulmates_, I’m totally going to take advantage of that to cuddle. Also, if I’m going to be sleeping in a suite more suited to a noble whose head would fit a guillotine better than your hands do to your gloves—”

“The things you do with words.” Keith snorts.

“—if I’m going to be haunted by Louis XVI, then you’re staying with me.”

“Oh, am I?” asks Keith, even as he lets Lance pull him out of that prison room. “But Lance, the _impropriety_. What would Coran say?”

“I’m surprised you know that word.”

“Of course I would know Coran’s name,” Keith deadpans.

Lance gives in to the urge to strangle his soulmate with the gauzy curtains.

They’re lying on the carpets, panting. Half their armor is strewn around the floor.

“I totally got you with that headlock,” Lance gasps.

Keith makes a derisive noise. “You mean the one I purposefully gave into, so I could pin you and make you eat—well, there’s no dirt here, but the sentiment stands.”

Lance gropes for a feather-stuffed pillow to hit him with. Keith bats it away.

“Enough already,” Keith groans. He rolls closer and pushes his head against Lance’s arm. “M’tired.”

“You’re such a cat.” Lance threads his fingers into Keith’s hair. Ugh, sweat.

(He keeps doing it, though, because ever since Keith got out of the pod yesterday, Lance has been conducting an experiment to see how long it takes before Keith gives in to the Galra genes and starts purring. So far, results are inconclusive.)

“You’re not falling asleep here,” he says.

“Mmrp,” replies Keith.

“There’s a perfectly good bed a foot away.”

Keith snores.

“…Ah, well,” Lance sighs, “s’probably haunted by Louis anyway.”

With Keith dead asleep on his shoulder and the carpets being as thick and fluffy as they are, Lance settles in for the long haul.

He grabs his helmet and after a little poking around, projects a holoscreen from the visor. He knows he could join Keith for a nap, but he’s still curious about this war that the Levertans—a whole ass planet—had with _one_ single enemy.

Just how dangerous was this thing?

This is what he learns:

Fifteen years previous, on one of the coldest nights Levert had ever seen, a spacecraft crashed in the sands far north.

The eWr clan were the first to deploy their people. A contingent of soldiers and a team of diplomats flew out in the dead of night to assess the situation.

Only one Levertan made it out that night. An extremely lucky soldier that barely managed to escape. They would carry back with them a harrowing account of the threat encountered: a demon, said the soldier. It had been a demon.

The thing had been able to _possess_ people. It had a telepathic ability to project its consciousness into multiple targets at once and make them do its bidding. The soldier said they had felt it rip into their mind, felt it take over. When they woke up, they were drenched in their comrade’s…leftovers.

When asked if they thought the alien had responded to a perceived threat made by the unit, the soldier replied:

_No. No, I believe it had hostile intentions from the beginning._

_What gave you that impression?_

_Sir. It made us massacre _each other._ That wasn’t an act of self-defense, that was sadism. And it can read minds, _sir_, it had to have known we were friendly. There’s also the fact that it ate the remains. I watched it drink Wi’rn’s blood. _Sir.

The contempt comes through pretty clearly in the transcript, and Lance wonders if Re’sl accidentally sent classified military reports to him. He doubts the brass would want this kind of stuff available to the public.

In the months following that initial contact with the organism designated “the Kxri,” loosely translated as “the wrath” in the Levertan language, clans scrambled to defend against a threat they were never expected to deal with.

Levert had just achieved FTL tech. They were just beginning to play around with space exploration and the idea of colonies. They were so caught up in the exhilaration of exploration that it never occurred to them to think about extraterrestrial _threats_. They thought they were alone. In reality, it was just because they existed on what was basically the galaxy’s equivalent of Keith’s shack in the middle of nowhere. It was pure luck Zarkon hadn’t gotten his claws on them.

The only weaponry they had developed—while as polished and refined as a pre-FTL species could get—was nowhere near in the realm of being able to deal with a psi-active alien.

As a result, three million Levertans died within the first month of the crash landing. One individual, responsible for this worldwide massacre.

It sends a shudder down Lance’s spine, because in another world, this easily could’ve been Earth’s future.

By virtue of being closest, the eWr and the Il were hit first.

When drone surveillance confirmed that the alien was headed their way, troops rushed to mobilize. Tanks, fighter jets loaded with warheads, double the infantry outfitted in state-of-the-art armor.

None of it mattered. It was a slaughter.

Bullets were ineffective; stopped dead in their tracks, dropped uselessly to the sands. Soldiers fell to invisible demons, screaming and tearing at their skulls, at each other. Nobody could get close enough to even attempt close quarter combat.

Upon realizing how ineffective their tactics were against this new threat, the two clan complied all the intel they had and sent it to the rest of the planet—a warning, a dying yell to _run_. Then they dug their heels in and fought until their combined military forces were nearly eradicated. The clans were forced to evacuate their cities and flee into the wild deserts.

However, those guys bought enough time for the next clan, the Er, to study the Kxri and invent faster, deadlier projectile weapons. They mounted them outside its suspected telepathic range and opened continuous fire, day and night, like some messed-up version of an electric fence. It didn’t save them, but it seemed to amuse the alien and occupy its attention for a bit, until it got bored. Needless to say, the Er suffered losses too, holding the threat back while its citizens escaped.

This remained the pattern for the next five months. Clans rushed to invent tech and new strategies—stronger armor, longer-range weapons, they set traps far out from their borders—and then sent out their troops for what everyone knew was a desperate last stand. The death toll climbed. This one-man army couldn’t be stopped.

Then the eKut struck gold. While the other clans slowly fell under the blazing telepathic assault, a team of scientists and engineers had been frantically, blindly messing around with anti-telepathy tech. Six months into the war, they had an extremely rudimentary psionic-nullification device. They sent it out, attached it with sensors and scanners to record results in the field, in the hopeless faith that it would do _something._

It worked. Sort of.

The troops had set up the device in the area the Kxri was last seen in, then sent up a flare to invite it in, which it took because—well, even if it were a trap, the Levertans hadn’t yet posed a threat, so it wasn’t like the thing needed to be worried—except. Except that time, they _were a threat._

Reports described it like this: drones spotted the Kxri a mile out from the device, and quickly closing the distance on foot. The troops readied themselves. Everyone expected this to go as it always has.

Evidently, so did the alien. Upon seeing the nullification device, it had let out a chittering laugh before using its telepathy to—presumably make it do something—self-destruct, maybe.

Nothing happened. The device stayed were it was, untouched, until the Kxri, incensed, turned on the troops. That day, it fought more ruthlessly, hunted every soldier down meticulously, soaked itself in more blood than usual.

As if it had been afraid. As if it had been trying to prevent people from realizing what that device meant to it.

The footage had automatically been sent home, however. Within a day’s work, the scientists and engineers had come up with more prototypes. Portable versions, designed for single-user protection and worn around the head. Tank-sized versions, intended to be mounted to provide a psi-null area. Some were effective, some weren’t. They malfunctioned more than not.

When it got out to the rest of the planet that the eKut were on to something, the rest of the clans sent their best minds over, and then banded together to keep Kxri from advancing any farther. The Levertans had found their second wind. Grim perseverance replaced panic. Prototypes were sent out every week, then every day, then twice a day.

In the west, the near-decimated clans re-emerged, Re’sl being one of the few to lead them. They had grown more fierce, more feral than before, goading the alien back, baiting it with the chance to wipe them out—a challenge they knew its bloodthirsty nature couldn’t resist. The southern clans were then able to harass it from their side, jumping in and out of the fight, constantly moving, buzzing around it like an annoying gnat. The rest churned out weapon after weapon, sent soldiers and doctors and anybody that could spare a hand. This level of cooperation had only been seen once during the original unification.

Even so, the war raged on. It reached every corner of Levertan civilization. The clans were at the Kxri’s mercy, millions of people forced to drift around on their own lands, scattering at the slightest hint of the alien’s presence. The battle touched everyone, every single clan, until finally, it reached the Citadel.

It was there that the Levertans took their last stand.

On the fifteenth day of the first month, the year 2XXX of the Levertan calendar, the war ended.

In a catastrophic and highly risky move, Queen Lu’hr, Re’sl, and the ten clan leaders outfitted the Citadel’s deepest room in psi-nullifying tech, managed to lure and trap the Kxri in it, and then _brought the entire building down on it._

They blew it to the high heavens. The weather was messed up for _months_, that’s how big the explosion and resulting fire was. They made their crown jewel the Kxri’s _grave._

And then they built another Citadel over it.

Lance can’t believe it. The audacity. The sheer brazenness.

In the remaining years leading up Voltron’s re-emergence, priority was given to space-faring tech advances. When tentative probes returned with the discovery of the Galra, the Levertans closed up on themselves faster and tighter than a clam. Their progress in FTL and anti-telepathy tech was unparalleled, and they implemented that planet-wide shielding array. They’ve essentially been hiding themselves in the fabric of space this whole time. Which, understandable. They had to rebuild, and their numbers at that point barely reached a billion. They were in no place to fight or join any rebel causes.

“Damn,” Lance exhales. “Holy fuck.”

“They’re pretty savage, huh,” Keith says.

“_Jesus_—how long have you been awake?” Lance tries valiantly to stuff his heart back down his throat.

“Practically the entire time.” Keith looks up at him with his stupid, impossibly purple eyes. “How can anyone sleep with you whisper-reading and gasping at every part?”

Lance flushes.

“It was cute,” Keith consoles.

“That’s not the point,” Lance grumbles. He clears his throat. “So, since you were awake the whole time—got an idea for what the Kxri could be? ‘Cause I’m thinking that’s a species that needs to be flagged on the Coalition’s radar.”

“Nothing that comes to mind. Everyone we’ve met so far has been friendly, with the exception being the Galra obviously.” Keith rubs the bridge of his nose. “Just the thought of there being another hostile force out there gives me a headache.”

“Dunno how this didn’t come up in the files Coran sent. It seems big. This should’ve caught his attention.”

“I mean…the past couple of days have been rough on everybody. With the whole…you know.”

Lance winces. “Ah. Right.”

Keith pats his arm, sleep-sluggish. “Send a report to Coran, if you’re worried.”

“Mm. Maybe a short memo; it’s not a huge concern. It’s been, what, fifteen years? It’s all over and done with.”

Keith snorts.

“What?”

“Nothing, just…” Keith gives him a wry look. “Our luck hasn’t been very good recently. How funny would it be if we went back home only to tell Shiro that, like, the entire planet blew up or something?”

Lance cranes his head so he can stare right into Keith’s eyes. “That wouldn’t be funny at all.”

“It’s a little funny. You know what, bet you a week’s worth of Hunk’s desserts that something will go wrong on this mission.”

Lance sputters. “I am _not_ taking that bet, you—stop tempting fate! Dude, are you for real right now?”

Keith just smirks and rolls off him, heading for the closet. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Babe, I’m serious. Get back here.”

“Oh, Lance, look—_silk bathrobes._ That’s your thing, right?”

Lance drops his head with a groan.

When Lance emerges from the Exhibitionist Bathroom, as he’s taken to calling it, the lights are all off except the lamp on the bedside table. The room is warm and inviting in its darkness. Outside the windows, the stars sit proudly in the night sky. The faint lights of the city glimmer far below.

Keith’s already burrowed into the royal blue covers. At the sound of the door opening, he peeks out from behind them. His hair’s all ruffled, stark black against the cream pillows.

Lance has to—stop. Just—he comes to a halt, hands gripping the towel around his neck, and takes in the view.

“…Why are you looking at me like that,” Keith asks, voice muffled. He narrows his eyes, suspicious. His—his freaking fingers are barely visible from where they’re curled around the duvet—god, it’s…

It’s _adorable._

“N-nothing,” replies Lance automatically. He blinks. “Wait, no. I can say it now—you, uh, you look really cute.”

It’s admirable, how Keith always tries to hold back his blush, especially since he ends up going brilliantly pink every time.

“You can’t even _see_ me,” he mutters. He pulls the covers over his head to make a point.

Lance makes his way to his side of the bed, toweling his hair dry. “That’s half the appeal, babe.”

Keith’s voice is typically combative when he says, “Yeah? Well, you—you shouldn’t walk out of the shower without a shirt on unless you plan to do something about it.”

That freezes Lance up for a good minute.

The mound of blankets that is Keith practically radiates mortification.

“…Is it just instinct at this point? To try to one-up me at everything? Even if it embarrasses you?” Lance flings his towel off into some corner. He slips on the t-shirt by the foot of the bed.

“Like you don’t do it, either.”

“Touché.” He lifts the duvet and crawls in.

It should be awkward. They’ve shared bedrolls by necessity on stakeouts a couple times before this, of course, but it was only recently that they shared a bed.

And yet, Lance only feels ridiculously content.

“Come here?” He opens his arms.

“Why,” Keith says, just to be obstinate.

“Well, the bed’s huge. Better keep a hold on you or I might lose you during the night.”

Keith snorts, but slips into Lance’s embrace. His arm curls over Lance’s waist, his head tucked under Lance’s chin. He hides his face in Lance’s neck instead of the covers, and Lance feels his heart expand to swallow up all his other organs—it’s that amazing.

“I can hear you gloating.”

“What, I can’t be happy that I’m holding you?” he teases.

He gets a poke to the ribs for that, but when he twists around to turn off the lamp, Keith refuses to let up even an inch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the ultimate klance relationship dynamic is where they flirt and are affectionate and also _do not hesitate to fight each other on their bedroom floor at the first sign of weakness_ no i will not accept criticism


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *jaws theme again*

Ku’yr actually arrives at the first break of dawn.

Lance groans, flinging an arm over his face. Or, he would’ve, but Keith’s lying on one and seized the other to cuddle with.

“I—please pardon me,” she stutters, hovering behind the door and looking anywhere but at them. “I wasn’t aware—I can come back later?”

“No, no, it’s fine.” He sighs. “God, it’s just. So. Early.”

“I didn’t think Lu’hr meant ‘when the sun rises’ that literally,” Keith grunts.

At the sound of Keith’s voice, Ku’yr flushes harder.

“I’ll—I’ll be outside!” she squeaks.

Lance frowns at the closed door. “Do you think we weirded her out?”

“She’ll be fine.” Keith yawns. “Besides, we just made her job easier. C’mon, up, before we get her in trouble for being late.”

“You’re lying on me, dumbass.”

Keith sits up. “No, I’m not.”

“We’ll you’re not _now.”_ Lance stumbles towards the closet. “But you _were_ a second ago.”

“Where’s your proof, officer? Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“I’m going to shoot you.”

Once they’re dressed in jeans and tees, they leave the room to find Ku’yr hovering outside, twisting her hands together. She looks up with a hesitant smile.

Lance smiles back. “Sorry about that. We should probably hurry, huh?”

She nods and leads them down the hall.

The grand windows are open, curtains fluttering in the breeze. The rays of the sun are just beginning to slip over the sills, dripping onto the marble. It’s already hot enough that Lance wishes he’d worn his paladin gear, if only for the suit’s temperature regulator. Ku’yr leads them down another corridor and comes to a stop before the set of closed doors. She reaches for the handles and pulls.

Beyond it is a chamber with the typical high vaulted ceiling and tall, imposing pillars. Situated dead center is a long stone table, where the Queen and her council have convened.

Lance speaks up hesitantly, “We apologize for the wait.”

“Not to worry,” a councillor sitting at the far end pipes up. “We haven’t been waiting long.”

“Please, have a seat,” another says, waving at the empty chairs at the end of the table.

Once they do, the meeting starts. There is the standard round of introductions, in which Lance does his best to memorize names and faces, even as he’s one-hundred percent certain that Keith is just nodding along without retaining _anything_. (He _always_ does that, no matter how much Lance begs him to pay attention, ugh.)

“Let us familiarize ourselves with the schedule for these next few days leading up to the Cleansing.” Lu’hr nods to Lance and Keith. “Once again, paladins, thank you for joining us on this auspicious occasion.

“Councillors Se’kut, Ha’yr, Ty’hr, and Ai’sl,” she continues. “the main hall has been cleared out for your meditation circles. Please instruct the people until the hour for nourishment arrives.”

She goes around the table, outlining duties like that for a couple more minutes, until finally, she reaches Lance. “As for your part, Blue paladin, we would request your presence in the Clarity Cave every morning an hour after sunrise. There will aides there to instruct you through the ritual cleansings and the official ceremony. Ku’yr will lead you there today, and every day onward, if that is to your liking.”

Lance nods. “Works for me. If I may ask, however—it didn’t say anything in our mission briefings—what’s the importance of me going through the cleansings, and what will be my role in the official ceremony?”

Lu’hr folds her hands. “The daily cleansings are to clear one’s body and mind of any mortal distortions. Every person who volunteers for this duty is required to cleanse themselves. On the day of the festival, there will be several hours of meditation and offerings, which you do not have to be a part of. Following that will be the final cleansing, in the public square. That is where you are integral. Your job there will be the same as any regular cleansing. It is as easy as that.”

“Understood, sounds good to me.”

“Excellent. Now, are we all clear on our duties?” Lu’hr glances around the table. “Well, then, meeting adjourned.”

The council disperses with a graceful sort of haste in their steps. Lance and Keith wait until most of the rush has left before making for the door.

Ku’yr greets them on the other side, gesturing for them to hurry.

“I’ve worked with the aides assigned to the Cave before,” she says sheepishly. “They like punctuality.”

“Oh man.” Lance grins. “They’re not going to like me by the time this week is over, then.”

“Pardon?”

Keith snorts. “He’s saying that he’s never once been on time for anything. He couldn’t, not even if his life depended on it.”

“That’s true. Now, if it was _your_ life, however…” Lance shoots a smirk over his shoulder at Keith. “I’d show up a day early for you, baby.”

Keith pushes Lance’s face away. “Shut up,” he hisses. “Oh my god, that’s—that’s still _not on time_, you idiot.”

Ku’yr turns away, muffling a laugh into her sleeve.

Ku’yr leads them down, down, down. The air gets chilly and the floor under their shoes turns to rust-red stone. They’re deep in the foundations, footsteps echoing through the narrow passage.

“There is a small spring here,” she explains. “It’s why the previous Citadel was built here, and it’s half the reason why we rebuilt in the same spot.”

“I have to get in this spring?” Lance frowns. “Do you use it for your water reserves?”

She smiles. “Ah, no. It’s too small for that; it’s only used for the festival. You don’t need to worry about contamination.”

They reach the Cave and—it really is an actual cave. They walk through a wide archway, delicate designs carved into the stone, and into a breathtaking cavern. The roof of the cave extends far above them, the red deepening into inky black. The walls of the cave glint with moisture, little ropes of water dribbling down the rockface and pooling into the pond on the far side of the cave. The pond extends further into a small alcove, of which the inside is too obscured in darkness to see.

“Reminds me of when we found Blue,” Keith says quietly.

Lance knocks his knuckles against the rock; they come away cold and wet.

“Not really,” he murmurs.

“What was that?”

“Hm? Oh, nothing,” he replies. He spots a group of Levertans huddled by the pond, speaking to Ku’yr. “Come on, let’s not keep them waiting.”

“Now—yes, stand right there—and when the bells chime, walk steadily into the waterfall. And place your hands like so, as if you are offering something.” Aide Ji’hr places her right hand over her left, palms up, raising them both above her head. “Simple enough, yes?”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” says Lance. “What I don’t understand, though, is why I’m wearing _this_.”

He gestures to the white robe clinging to him. It ends mid-thigh, and—even when he’s pulled it as tight as it can go—it still exposes most of his chest. And the thing is basically _sheer_, that’s how white it is. It barely hides all the important parts; he’d feel more modest in a bikini. And it’s so chilly down here.

At least they let him keep his boxer briefs.

He is resolutely ignoring the gaze boring into the back of his head. Keith can stare from that corner all he wants, Lance is _not_ going to look at him. His ears are red enough already.

Ji’hr seems puzzled. “It is the traditional attire for the ceremony. It represents cleanliness and the willingness to leave material anchors behind.”

He squints at her. He can’t tell if she’s bullshitting him. “I’m keeping my underwear on for the actual Cleansing day, too.”

She frowns.

He frowns harder.

“…We can revisit the topic at a later date,” she allows.

That’s probably the best he’ll get. “Fine.”

“Now, please step into the water.”

The pond isn’t large, but it’s not small, either. It’s a rich blue colour, deeper and more vibrant than anything he’s seen on Earth. It looks like there’s no bottom to it.

From behind him, a voice calls out, teasing, “Don’t worry, I’ll be watching. I’ll pull you out if you drown.”

“Shut up, Keith, I can _swim_,” Lance retorts with a blush. Then, under his breath, “And I’d rather you didn’t watch, you butthead.”

He steels himself—because he doubts this is going to be heated water—and dips a foot in.

It’s _freezing._

“Nngh,” he says.

“It takes some getting used to,” Ji’hr says apologetically.

“I’ll bet,” he grumbles, wading forward, steps tentative. It would be better if he could actually _see_ where he was placing his feet. What if he cuts his foot on—

** _Finally._ **

Lance stumbles.

“What was that?” he croaks. His ears are ringing.

“Pardon?” Ji’hr asks.

“I—” he blinks rapidly. He puts a hand to his head. He could’ve sworn there was a voice…

He straightens, pushing—whatever that was—out of his mind. Maybe he didn’t get enough sleep? “Never mind. Anything else I need to do now?”

“Do you see the opening on the other side? The alcove? Walk into it—you’ll hit a wall almost immediately—and then all that’s left is to submerge yourself in the water for as long as you can,” she replies. “Four or five counts of your heart is the usual time.”

“Roger that.”

Slowly, he wades further into the pool. He keeps his hands above his head though it feels wrong to not have them push through the water.

He doesn’t know how long it takes him to travel the length the pond, but by the time he feels the pond floor level out and the water lick at his collarbone, he’s kind of…

Not all there.

His mind is oddly blank. The constant thoughts and worries are absent, for the first time in forever. It’s almost like how it feels after a good spar with Keith. Almost, but not quite.

He passes the under the archway, the stone brushing against his hair. In here, it’s even colder. In here, he sees so little. In here, the darkness is thick. He glances over his shoulder. The light from the torches the aides carry are tiny pinpricks, flickering dimly. His stare doesn’t seem to register to them. They can’t see him, can they?

He reaches out and feels damp rock under his fingers. The ridges and dips of it send shivers up his arm. He smooths his palm over it.

And then he sinks to his knees.

_Wind. Wind and coarse sand. An earth so dry it makes you wild with fury._

_You are a being born in the tears and the sweat of your mother. You live drenched in the oceans of your planet, the rain that blesses the tall, looming trees, and the blood that pumps through your prey._

_This planet enrages you. You are so thirsty. Dust digs its way into your lungs, under your nails, cracking the skin._

_You are forced to inhabit the minds of small critters, to debase yourself, to rely on the instincts of vermin, just to find pockets of water in the heat. Even when you do stumble across water, it is too far underground to reach. More often than not, you end up drinking the little hosts dry._

_You are so _thirsty_._

_You need more._

Lance breaks through the surface. He gasps, sucking in air and choking because somehow, his throat is so goddamn parched.

He stumbles to his feet, nails scraping over the stone wall. Water sluices over his chest like fingers made of ice. It runs over his eyes and gathers in his ears. He presses a hand to his neck, swallows. Feels like sandpaper down his esophagus. His jaw aches. Saliva pools under his tongue, and he gets this urge to _bite_.

He shakes his head vigorously. He—he just blanked out and it’s messing with his senses. He’s imagining things.

“…I should probably come out.” The crack of his voice is barely audible over the sound of water falling. He clears his throat.

He exhales shakily. His first step nearly sends him under again.

“Shit.” He laughs, tremulous. “God, what the fuck is going on?”

Sound filters through his ears, faint. A voice, familiar and agitated. He peers through the opening and spots a figure moving about erratically—Keith. He must be worried.

How long has Lance been in here?

“Okay.” He puts his hands on his knees, bending close enough to have the water kiss his chin. His tongue swipes over his lips, tastes the moisture there. Something about it is dissatisfying to him. “It’s just water, McClain. You were practically born in it.”

He takes a second, a moment to pull himself together—whatever that was back there, he’s not thinking of it now. Right now, he needs to get over to the other side of the pool before Keith offends a dozen aides by throwing his ritually unclean body into a blessed pool.

“C’mon,” he hisses, “he’s _waiting_ for you.”

When he emerges from the alcove, it’s by sheer force of will. God, how is he this exhausted already?

From the edge of the pond, Keith startles at the sight of him. He sees the way Keith’s lips form his name, before his ears register the sound.

“Are you okay?” his soulmate shouts across the room.

God, he’s so _worried_. It’s nice, Lance muses absently. Keith’s so nice…

“Do you need me to come get you? I can come get you, just stay right there.” Keith asks, already shucking off his jacket, to the aggravation of several aides, who try in vain to get him to put it back on.

Lance can’t muster the energy to tell him no, so he just settles for flapping a hand dismissively, although that much severely depletes him, too.

Keith pauses, unconvinced. “You’re sure?”

Lance takes a couple steps, just to show him. The water resistance is killer.

Keith settles, albeit grudgingly. Lance breathes a sigh of relief; who knows how the aides would’ve reacted if he hadn’t.

Before long, Lance is stepping out of the water. Shivers wrack his body, unrelenting, and his jaw aches from how hard he’d clenched his teeth together. He almost forgets to feel self-conscious about the now completely-see-through robe until he locks eyes with Keith, who proceeds to blush and duck his head.

Lance feels his cheeks go warm.

Ji’hr hands him a large, fluffy towel. “That was perfect, Lance. You’re a natural.”

He quirks an eyebrow. “What, at taking a dip in a pond? You don’t have to flatter me, you know.”

“Of course,” she says. “Well, that’s enough for today. You look rather exhausted, if I’m honest. Are you alright?”

“It’s not that bad—”

“Lance, you’re swaying on your feet,” Keith interjects. “If I wasn’t holding onto you, you’d be on the ground.”

Lance glances down at his elbow, which Keith has apparently been gripping onto this entire time. “Oh.”

Ji’hr nods. “Please get some rest, Lance. We will see you tomorrow.”

After he shrugs on his clothes, he’s gently but firmly steered out of the cave by Keith’s hand on his back. Ku’yr offers to lead them back but Lance waves her off. He knows she’s got more important duties to attend to than to get stuck babysitting them.

“If you’re sure,” she says, eyeing him.

“I am,” he tells her, smiling. “Thanks for the help, though.”

Keith takes his arm and slings it over his own shoulder. They shuffle slowly down the stone passage. Like this, Lance is acutely aware of the inch he’s got on his soulmate. His chest gives a lurch.

“What’s wrong?” Keith asks.

“Huh?”

“You’re rubbing your neck. Does it hurt?”

Lance glances down. Oh, so he had been. “Nah, it’s just…”

“What?” Keith frowns, concerned. He leans in, eyes searching. He’s got the prettiest eyes on this side of the galaxy, Lance is sure. The darkest, fullest eyelashes, too. Even when he’s scowling, he’s so…

“It’s nothing,” Lance murmurs.

Keith gives him a dubious look but relents. “If you say so. You don’t need me to carry you, right?”

“Seeing as how we’re walking now and I haven’t fallen yet, I’d say ‘no.’ You worry too much; I’m just a little tired. Although—” Lance cocks his head— “the idea of you taking me to bed like that does sound pretty appealing.”

Keith goes bright red. “God, you never stop, do you?”

“You bought this bag of worms, you gotta bury it.”

“I am one hundred percent sure that’s not how the saying goes.”

“Well, how would you know? You’re an alien.”

“You know,” Keith says, “I thought that worst thing about finding out I was half-Galra would be that, even distantly, I was somewhat related a reign of tyranny. But it turns out the worst part is that my _freaking soulmate won’t stop making jokes about it_ and bugging me to take him to Area 51, aka my “home,” which is actually nowhere _near_ my shack on Earth, _which he has been to._”

Lance whistles. “Damn, whoever he is, he sounds like a catch.”

“Take him off my hands, then, because I’m this close to stabbing him.”

“Hmm, I would, but—” Here, he plants a quick kiss to Keith’s cheek— “I’m already dating my dream man, babe. Sorry.”

Keith drops him on the ground.

“Oh, shit,” Lance groans into the pillow. He arches his back, hands digging into the sheets. “Oh, god.”

Over by the closet, Keith thumps his forehead to the polished wood. _“Lance,_ would you stop with the noises, _please_._”_

Lance’s lifts his head, smiling sheepishly but feeling secretly proud about the flush on Keith’s ears. “Sorry. But this bed feels a hundred times better after the cave thing. I think my spine just realigned.”

Keith fixes him with a scrutinizing squint. “That really drained you, huh.”

“It’s fine, dude. It’s probably ‘cause we didn’t have anything for breakfast.”

Keith straightens, alarmed. “Shit, how’d we forget about that? I’ll call for some. Stay here.”

“Wait, Keith—”

The door snaps closed.

Lance drops his head back with a breathy laugh. With the way his soulmate’s been acting, you’d think it was _Lance_ who died recently.

The smile slides off his face.

_Blood under his nails. Keith’s tears dripping onto his face._

He bolts straight up. “Nope, no. Not today.”

He yanks off his clothes, letting them fall to the floor. His motions are jerky, clumsy. When he’s finally slipped into his pajamas, a bone-deep weariness has settled in.

He stares sightlessly at his hands. Turns them back and forth, curls them into fists and then flattens them out on his thighs.

The door opens.

“Hey, sent word off to an aide, so we should be getting food soon,” Keith says. “You changed?”

“I think I might take a nap,” Lance explains, stuffing his hands under his thighs.

Keith’s brows go up. “It’s not even the afternoon.”

Lance shrugs.

“Think you could wait until you eat something?”

Sleep is pulling at his eyelids and his spine feels like a limp noodle, but he nods. The frown on Keith’s face eases.

The food arrives just as Lance is about to pass out. Keith opens the door and Ku’yr is on the other side with a cart of food.

“I am so sorry,” she apologizes profusely. “I don’t know how your daily intake slipped through our preparations for you.”

“It’s alright,” he replies, awkward. “If it was just me, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but Lance was close to passing out after the session.”

“I was not!” Lance protests. “Don’t listen to him, he’s a filthy liar.”

Ku’yr looks between the two of them. “Does…does that happen every time your species forgets to eat?”

“Not usually.” Keith takes the cart from her. “But he probably just needs some sleep.”

“Aaand you’re both ignoring me, great.” Lance throws his hands in the air.

Ku’yr bites back a smile. “I’ll let the aides know of this. It might be the cleansing, then—something in the water—that caused this.”

Keith nods, thanks her, and closes the door.

They set out the spread on Lance’s gold-gilded table. The cart boasts an abundant and varied amount of food, and it all looks surprisingly tantalizing. You never know when alien cuisine will be edible, let alone appetizing. (Looking at you, Altean food goo.) Lance feels guilty for how little he manages to scarf down before his body starts threatening to just pass out on his plate.

“We’ll save it for later,” Keith says. “I’ll let them know we won’t need lunch delivered.”

“Sorry. I don’t know why I’m so out of it. We don’t even get to hang out like this.”

“It’s alright, I was just going to train.”

“But I want to train _with_ you,” Lance grouses. “That’s the fun part.”

Keith runs a hand through Lance’s hair, smiling faintly. “I know. Still, you should get some sleep. I’ll be in the other room; that way I won’t accidentally break anything valuable. Yell if you need me, okay?”

Lance nuzzles into Keith’s hands and forces himself to his feet. “Okay. Don’t overdo the training.”

Keith pushes him over to the bed, probably intending to tuck him in or some sappy stuff like that, but the second Lance’s head hits the pillow, he’s out like a light.

_It’s better when you can get in close._

_Using your mind, watching them fly back with just a thought—it’s pleasing, yes, makes you proud of your power, yes._

_But seeing their life drain from their eyes up close is just _delicious_._

_They cry the loudest when you play with them, drag them back from their group. It’s because they still hope. They are desperate, begging not to be left behind. Every planet your people have infiltrated, this is always true. It is your favourite part._

_You jump on the back of a soldier and crush their windpipe with a single thought. The thing dies face-down, gurgling quietly, and this sound, too, makes your body sing._

_The desert drinks its blood; too bad, you’ve could’ve used the liquid to clean the sand from your teeth._

_You flip the soldier over._

_Vacant violet eyes. Wild black hair. The red painting the chest and neck is so glaring against the pale skin, it draws your eyes down to that gaping hole in the abdomen. Strange, you didn’t put that there._

_A shard of metal is buried in the flesh._

_You realize your hands are wrapped around it._

_You look up._

_Keith stares back. With his dying breath, he asks:_

_“Who are you?”_

Lance comes to, screaming.

He surfaces from the sheets’ choke-hold, gasping, right as Keith bursts through the conjoining doors, Marmora knife in hand.

“What? What’s wrong?” he demands, scanning the room.

Lance only manages a pitiful wheeze. He hunches forward, hands in his hair. His head throbs.

“Shit.” Keith scrambles over, tossing his blade on the side table. He sits on the edge of the bed, hand hovering over Lance’s shoulder. “Lance, baby? Hey—hey, look at me?”

“K-Keith,” Lance rasps, head lifting. “Keith, I—”

“I’m here, I’m here.” He cradles Lance’s face. “What’s wrong?”

Lance can’t say anything. His throat’s closed up. _I thought I killed you. I dreamed I killed you, for real this time. _He can’t say it.

He pulls Keith in, instead. They fall back onto the bed.

“Whoa!” Keith slams his hands to either side of Lance’s head, just in time to stop their heads from colliding. “Lance?”

Lance buries his face into Keith’s neck. “Just. Stay? Just for a moment. Please.”

Gently, slowly, Keith lets himself settle over Lance. His weight is grounding, the scent of his sweat achingly comforting. The beat of his heart sings to Lance, makes his eyes prickle with tears.

“Bad dream?” Keith asks softly, and there’s a fleeting pressure on top of Lance’s head, as if Keith’s left a kiss there.

“…Really bad,” Lance answers, hoarse. “You…you died in it.”

Keith inhales sharply.

Lance forces a laugh. “Guess I’m not over it, yet. Kinda dumb, huh?”

“Don’t do that,” Keith tells him, a touch angrily. “Don’t pretend—don’t _joke_—not when you’re like this. Not when you’re with me.”

Lance swallows. Seriously, how does Keith always—? “Sorry. Habit.”

“I know,” Keith sighs. He rolls them onto their sides and tucks Lance into his arms. “I just—you know you can be real with me, right? Because I—I love you, you know?”

Lance fiddles with a strand of Keith’s hair. Abruptly, he asks, “Doesn’t it worry you? That every time we say _that_, it could be the last? Doesn’t it make you…I don’t know—doesn’t it make you scared? To say it?”

Keith is quiet. “Does it scare you?”

Lance tucks the strand behind Keith’s ear, avoiding his eyes. “…A little.”

“If you don’t want to say it back because of that, it’s okay with me,” says Keith. “But it’s better now, for me, this soulmate thing, so I don’t think I’ll ever be scared to say it.”

“Better?”

“Mm. The—the words we have now, our last words, they’re…they’re happy words. Not like before—” Keith swallows; Lance hears it stick in his throat. “They’re—ugh, it’s sappy, but—they’re loving words. And if that’s how it ends, then I don’t mind. I don’t mind, if it ends happily.”

“Oh,” Lance breathes.

“I don’t want to stop telling you I love you, just because I’m scared of losing you. I feel like if I give into it…” Keith tightens his embrace. “Somewhere down the line, I’ll look back and realize I let the fear stop me from loving you.”

And damn him. Damn his stupid, touching words—Lance is going to cry again, Lance is going to _implode_, with how much he adores this man. “How are you always right?” he mutters, voice gone all wobbly. “I hate it.”

Laughter rumbles through Keith’s chest. “You’re impossible to please.” He pushes the hair back from Lance’s forehead, brushes a kiss there.

They lie together for a few more minutes. Lance takes comfort in it, listening to Keith’s heartbeat settle and feeling his own follow along.

“Think you’re up for some more food?” Keith asks. “Or are you still tired?”

“Let’s fight,” Lance replies promptly.

“Worst way to ask someone to spar, hands-down.”

“You’ve literally said that to me multiple times. You know, before you had Hunk _coach_ you on how to ask properly?”

Keith’s blush travels upwards from his neck to his hairline, like an actual anime boy. “That—he said he’d keep that a secret!”

Lance snorts. “Clearly you’ve never met him.”

Keith hides his face in Lance’s hair.

Lance grins, feeling so, so fond. Figures _this_ is what makes Keith flustered, rather than the Oscar-worthy speech he just gave that single-handedly redefined romance.

He hugs Keith tighter, quietly vowing never to hurt him. That dream is never going to happen.

They spar on and off for the rest of the afternoon, taking breaks for food and water. It’s exactly what Lance needs. His muscles get that satisfying burn, thrumming with blood, and when he tries out the bathtub, his body goes all loose and relaxed. Keith comes out looking much the same. (Lance tries his damned best not to linger over the vee of Keith’s hips under the towel, because he might just burst a blood vessel.)

When evening rolls around, they turn off the temp controls and crack open the windows. The curtains flutter in the mild breeze, air still warm from the setting sun.

They lie in bed, watching the sun slink lower and lower. Their fingers curl together, heads lying close, breathing the same air. Lance lets Keith tuck his perpetually cold feet behind Lance’s knees, and in return, Keith consents to Lance playing with his hair.

By the time they finally shut their eyes, the stars have all come out to wish them goodnight.

Lance wakes up four hours later, breathing hard.

He doesn’t go back to sleep but stares as Keith breathes evenly next to him, instead.

By sunrise, the images seen in the dark have been burned away by the sight of his soulmate, bathed in morning gold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 👀😗😜


	10. Chapter 10

When Ku’yr arrives the next morning, she tells them there’s been a change of plans.

“Her Majesty and the General will be joining us today.”

Lance raises his brows. “Is something wrong?”

“They’re just taking precautions,” is all she would say on it.

Queen Lu’hr is conversing quietly with Ji’hr when they enter the cave. Re’sl, idly sharpening a knife, is stationed at her side. They’re not the only thing that’s new about the place.

Lance blinks owlishly at a lush settee sitting by the pond. Beside it, on a delicate-looking table, is a plate of refreshments. Little pastries, finger food and the like.

Keith walks over to the light stand situated next to the settee, shining a warm pink glow onto the seat. He sticks his hand under it. “It’s a heat lamp,” he reports, baffled.

“Ku’yr told us of the toll it took on you yesterday,” Queen Lu’hr explains, turning to them. “We’ve added accommodations in case you become fatigued again. We hope this is satisfactory?”

“Oh, more than. I appreciate it, Your Majesty,” Lance rubs his neck. “If I may be frank, though, I’m pretty sure yesterday was just because I was hungry.”

“Regardless, your health is of great importance to us. We’ve already sent a sample of the water to the labs for allergen testing, and some inspectors will be coming this afternoon to examine the cave.”

“Oh, you didn’t need to—”

“Indulge us,” Re’sl interrupts, patting Lance’s shoulder. “Have some food, or a drink, perhaps, before you head in. And if you feel dizzy after, we’d rather you take a seat over there instead of fainting. It won’t do anyone any good if you—either of you—get into trouble.”

“That is why we are observing this time,” Lu’hr adds. “Not only is this the first time we’ve had a cleansing conducted since we rebuilt, but we’ve also never had another species participate before and we want to ensure your well-being during your stay here.”

“That’s…actually really nice to hear,” Lance says. “You know, some planets we go to forget things like allergies or even crowd control. I’ve lost count of how many stampedes I’ve seen. Which brings me to my next point: Please tell Ji’hr here that I can wear my boxers on the day of the cleansing.”

Keith, sprawled over the settee, snorts unattractively. “But Lance,” he drawls, “it’s—”

_“Tradition,”_ Ji’hr finishes. “Your—_boxers—_clash horribly with the attire!”

“I am going insane here,” Lance tells the Queen of Levert. “Please think of my modesty, Your Majesty. My virtue.”

Keith snorts, again. _What modesty,_ that snort says. If he doesn’t stop making obnoxious pig noises soon, Lance is going to hit him.

Ji’hr wrings her hands. “No participant has ever worn anything but the traditional robe.”

“Listen, I’m not against the robe. I am against letting my junk hang out like a monkey dangling from a tree branch by its furry little tail.”

Keith falls off the settee. Ku’yr squeaks, blushes, and shoots a glance at the queen, who only places a hand over her mouth, looking rather amused. Re’sl is outright grinning.

“Perhaps we can come to a compromise,” Lu’hr says. “What if we had a pair of undergarments made for the occasion? Of the same material as the robe?”

Ji’hr perks up. “That would be acceptable, most certainly.”

“You’re a goddess among mortals, Your Majesty,” Lance tells her seriously. “Truly, I’m in your debt.”

“Stop flirting,” says Keith suddenly, appearing from across the room to stand right behind Lance, what the _fuck_. Lance’s heart almost gives out.

“It was just a compliment! How did you even move that fast?”

Keith slaps a fruit into his palm and starts pushing him towards the aides by the pool. “Eat. And go get ready.”

Lance looks at him over his shoulder. “So this is how you’re like when you’re jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.”

“You don’t need to worry; you know I think you’re even more awesome, right?” He smiles.

Keith stares blankly at him. “Stop it,” he croaks. “That’s not going to work on me.”

“Alright.” Lance pauses. “You, uh, you gonna stand there while I strip down, or…?”

Keith jerks. “Right. Right, sorry. Good—goodbye.” He walks off, limbs stiff and ears red.

To the side, Lu’hr turns to Re’sl and cheerfully says, “Attending this was a good decision.”

_The stories say that your people were conceived in the seas. That a race of gods emerged from the depths, hungry and unafraid._

_And what did they have to fear? With a single thought, prey would fly into their hands. The ocean mother had made you powerful._

_By the time you were born, however, your people had stripped the planet of most of its life. The oceans were nearly devoid of sense and thought. Quiet._

_So you expanded. Colonized. Your people were undisputed victors across the stars._

_And then the Galra came._

_They had been watching. Waiting as your people did the work, cleaning out the local population and then, at the last second, swooping in to drain the planet itself dry._

_War broke out. The battles were vicious. On land, in close-quarters, your people had the advantage. But in space, in a clash fought with long-range weapons and fighter jets, the Galra were overwhelming. You could not rip into their minds, could not detach their limbs from their torso as you desired to. Even when you managed to take control of their bodies, they’d blow themselves up with a suicide implant._

_They hid behind distance, behind cheap tactics. It was infuriating. It was cowardice. Their actions were those of prey, of a lesser race, masquerading as predator._

_Eventually, your people were forced to scatter. To _flee.

_You vowed to see a sea of Galra blood one day._

Lance blinks his eyes open.

The sound of his heartbeat is deafening. He looks down at himself, his body. He runs his hands over his stomach, his thighs, his arms. He runs a tongue over his teeth. Blunt, clean. He tastes sugar from the fruits, the snacks from earlier. Nothing else.

He stands there for another moment, then turns around and steps through the archway.

If he had glanced back, he would’ve seen a small reptile scuttle into a crack in the rock.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Keith asks.

“Yeah,” replies Lance, and he means it.

There’s no dizziness, none of the stuff from last time. Honestly, he kind of feels energized. He bounces on the balls of his feet.

Re’sl circles him, brows furrowed. “You’re not in danger of fainting?”

“I don’t _faint_.”

“You do,” assures Keith. “All the time. Do you have an iron deficiency?”

Lance answers him with a glare.

“I suppose last time really was because you didn’t eat,” Lu’hr muses. “I apologize. That was an oversight on my part.”

Lance waves his hands. “No harm done, Your Majesty.”

“Oh, you’re too kind. Accept my apology, won’t you?”

He laughs. “If that’s what you’d like.”

“What I’d like,” she says, “is if you could keep an eye on yourself today. You might feel fine now, but the effects could come later.”

“Sure, I can do that. Keith won’t let me out of his sight anyway.”

“Can you blame me?” Keith grumbles.

Lu’hr claps her hands. “In that case, Re’sl and I will take our leave; we have another meeting soon.”

“Thank you for attending,” Lance says. “Actually, Re’sl, if I could get a word with you before you leave?”

Re’sl blinks. “Certainly.”

They move to the side. Lance feels Keith’s suspicious gaze on his neck.

“You mentioned a store yesterday,” he begins. “On our way to the Citadel. Could you give me directions?”

Re’sl smiles. His eyes flick over to Keith. “Is this for…?”

Lance sighs. “That obvious?”

“It is hard to hide the contentment that radiates off soulmates. And rumor has it that the quarters assigned to Keith remain very much empty.”

He flushes. “You going to help me out or what, man?”

Re’sl laughs. “Alright, alright. Now, the way there is very simple…”

Lance listens carefully. It’s not simple at all. He wishes he had his suit here so Re’sl could just send the directions over.

“And one more thing.” Re’sl leans in closer. “If you really want to have a fun time, there is this place that is quite popular these days.”

Lance raises an eyebrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh Lance......oh baby.....trust your instincts more sweetheart :(
> 
> this one was short but the next one will make up for it. Also **there’s an explicit scene at the end of it so heads up** if that’s not ur thing. Or if it is your thing, whichever lol


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE HEED THE RATING CHANGE BABES!!! IT'S MATURE NOW
> 
> <s>me, a virgin who’s on been on one (1) date her entire life: why is this chapter such a bitch to write I just don’t understand what the problem could possibly be</s>
> 
> **When you get to “Lance doesn’t remember the walk back,” ctrl+f “Keith just laughs at him from the floor” to skip the sex**

“What was that about?” Keith asks as they walk back to their quarters.

“Let’s go on a date,” Lance says decisively.

Keith screeches to a stop. “What?”

“We didn’t get to see that thing you wanted to show me on Olkarion. And even though we’re on a mission, we actually have so much downtime. We should make the most of it. What do you say?”

“Was that what you were talking to Re’sl about?”

“Yeah? How else was I going to know where to take you?” Lance fixes Keith with an imploring look. “Can I? Take you on a date? Please?”

Keith looks away, hiding behind his hand. He’s not fooling anyone, though, Lance can totally see the redness spreading over his face. “Sure, I—whatever.”

Lance grins. Bumps their shoulders together. “Awesome.”

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“Can’t help it.” Lance pokes his cheek. “Pink looks good on you.”

Keith swipes at him, blushing angrily, which Lance didn’t think was possible before he met Keith. “I take it back, I don’t want to go on a date with your dumb ass.”

“Too bad. I’m already your boyfriend, dude. No returns or exchanges.” Lance walks off, leaving Keith to groan uselessly into his hands.

After changing into their armor, they find themselves standing on the steps of the Citadel with Re’sl’s directions programmed into Lance’s vambrace.

“Wish we didn’t have to wear the suit,” he sighs. “But—”

“Safety protocol,” Keith finishes. “Also, it’s hot as hell out here. You know, we should ask Allura if we can go back to that space mall. We don’t have to wear armor there. And they have air conditioning.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm.” He levels Lance with a considering look. “We’ll go shopping for clothes. Something to wear on dates, even. I want to see you in something new.”

Lance blinks. Smirks. “Oh, do you?”

“Don’t.”

He raises his hands in surrender. Then puts one behind his back and extends the other to Keith. He bows. “May I escort the handsome gentleman down these precarious steps?”

Keith snorts loudly and slaps his hand into Lance’s. “Are you ever going to stop flirting, _loverboy?”_

“The answer’s in the name, baby.” Lance waggles his brows. “And if you think I’m going to stop now that I can officially woo your dirty gloves off, you don’t know me at all.”

Keith sighs.

“I think it was around here somewhere.”

“We’re lost,” Keith declares.

“Shut up.” Lance squints at the map projecting from his vambrace. “I think this is upside down.”

“How can it be upside down, you’re—Lance, the suit always projects it the right way up, I—forget it.” Keith throws his hands up, yanking Lance’s with his because somehow, they haven’t let go of each other this whole time.

If Lance thinks about it for too long, his soul will literally combust, so he just frowns harder at the map.

“Oh, wait, okay, I know where we are.” He looks around. “Yeah, this is the street Re’sl said it should be on. I think it’s a little further down.”

“It better be.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll tie you to the bed and tickle you when we get back.”

Lance considers this. “That’s kind of ki—”

“Finish that and you really will die laughing.”

“You’re so dramatic.”

“Blame Shiro.”

“Oh, I do.”

Keith snorts. “You still haven’t told me what we’re doing here, yet.”

“It’s called a surprise for a reason.”

“Give me a hint,” Keith demands.

“No.”

“Hint.”

_“No.”_

“Why the hell not?” Keith—wow, he’s whining. Lance’s heart roundhouse kicks his chest.

He comes to a stop, tilts his head at a non-descript storefront. “Because we’re here.”

The interior of the shop is well-lit, the décor practical. The walls are lined completely in shelves, showcasing the goods plainly. It’s an upfront-sort of establishment. Lance approves.

“Is this…” Keith drifts away, heading for the—yup, right for the knives. “Did you bring me to a weapons supply store?” His voice holds a note of wonder.

“Uh huh. You like it?”

“Do you even have to ask?” His soulmate already looks like he’s dying to test out the blades. Score.

“Can I help you gentlemen?” someone asks.

“Oh fu—” Lance exhales, turning to face the shop owner. “Sorry. You startled me; I didn’t hear you at all.”

The Levertan smiles up at him. They point to their boots. “The soles are made of _ruit_ fiber. Near soundless on all surfaces. I’m Ci’wr, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Nice to meet you, too. I’m Lance. That’s Keith over there, drooling over your collection of knives.”

They nod. “Good taste. I’m fond of them myself.”

Lance glances over his shoulder. Leans in and whispers, “Hey, do you have gloves here? Specifically, any that are tailored to handle knives and swords?”

Ci’wr gives him a knowing look. “Come this way.”

They lead him towards the back of the shop, around a display case of what looks like knuckle dusters, into a corner with a rack of gloves. Thermal, fingerless, straight-up gauntlets, and a bunch other shit he can’t identify.

He picks up a pair of fingerless ones. The material is tougher than the ones Keith has—tougher than unworn leather even.

“I wouldn’t recommend those for your purposes,” Ci’wr says. “Too stiff, even after breaking them in. But if you would like the fingerless style, these ones are a better bet.”

They hand him a pair, black like Keith’s, except that on first glance, even he can see how well the fibers are woven. Tight, but with enough give so it doesn’t hamper dexterity. He flips it inside out, checks the seams. Slides his hand in and makes a fist.

“Huh, kind of makes me want a pair for myself.”

“You should get a matching pair.” Ci’wr smiles. “If I’m reading the two of you correctly.”

Lance laughs. “You are, but I’m not really a sword guy.”

“Oh, you never know. You might be, one day,” they reply cryptically.

“Lance? Where are—oh.” Keith walks up to them. “Are those—?”

“Yup.” Lance hands the gloves over. “Try them on.”

Keith peels off his suit gloves and slips on the new ones, and yup—the look on his face sets it in stone for Lance. He’s buying these for Keith. “These are _nice_. A lot better than mine.”

“The fibers are made from Rix’ca scales,” Ci’wr says. “We receive them as export from the planet Ru’tere. Ethically acquired, of course. Collected from grooming salons and such. The process to deconstruct the scales into flexible fibers was created by my mother.”

“Wait.” Lance holds up a hand. “Scales from _Ru’tere_? Like in the Halur galaxy? Are you saying this is made from _dragons?_”

Ci’wr blinks. “I do not know what dragons are, but yes, that Ru’tere.”

“Holy shit,” Keith breathes. He grabs Lance’s arm. “I’m wearing dragonhide gloves. I’m actually wearing legit dragonhide, Lance.”

Lance stares back at him. “This is so fucking cool. Dude, please tell me you’re going to let me buy these for you.”

“What? No, I’ll buy them.”

“No way, I brought you here so I could get new gloves for you. Your old ones were practically begging for retirement.” He turns to Ci’wr, who is giving them amused looks. “How much?”

“Five hundred credits.”

Not bad. Totally understandable, given the craft and quality of this thing. Rix’can scales, Jesus H. Christ. Those things are fire-proof and durable beyond anything Earth fibers could hope to achieve.

“Deal.” He loads up his credit chip and follows Ci’wr to the check out counter.

“Lance—”

“No, shut up, let me do this for you.”

“Do you even have enough?”

Lance throws a smirk over his shoulder. “Baby, I’m loaded.”

Keith flushes. “I don’t know why I asked. Fine, but I’m paying the other part of our date.”

“Works for me!”

The place Re’sl recommended is called Gi’yr’s Arena, and their time there goes spectacularly, if Lance says so himself.

…Although, if he and Keith were anybody else other than themselves, he doesn’t know if it would’ve been as successful.

Okay so, Gi’yr’s Arena is actually a training facility. Specifically for couples, apparently.

It sounds lame, but he’s seriously considering taking Keith back to this planet just to have dates at this place.

He’s never had so much _fun_. It wasn’t what he was expecting when Re’sl told him there was a popular date spot, but the place totally makes sense for a race as hardy as them. Apparently, most of their oral history is pretty violent, too, with countless tales based on warrior couples fighting back to back. They were written on the informational holofeeds outside the facility and were actually really interesting. He wonders if they’ve made movies about it yet.

They’re walking down the street, rubbing at their bruises and looking for a café or whatever passes as one here, when Keith freezes.

“Lance, shit.”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“We,” he says, stone-faced, “absolutely cannot tell Shiro our first date was just—just us going _training_. He will literally ruin our lives if we do.”

“…That’s what you’re worried about?”

“It’s _Shiro,”_ Keith says, as if that’s all the explanation anyone needs.

“We didn’t _train_, technically. It was like—paintball. And capture the flag. But like, with real weapons.” Lance pauses. “Man, they had some cool guns…I wonder if I could ask about the schematics.”

“You don’t understand—if he catches even the tiniest hint about this…” Keith shudders. “He’d put it in the best man’s speech. He’d put in our obituary. He’d make sure every Coalition planet had it in their history books.”

“Do you think we could go back tomorrow? I really want to see how they incorporated that scope with the—” Lance squints. “Did you just say—did you just say ‘best man’s speech’? Did you just imply we’d be getting married? Keith, that’s like the second time you’ve kind-of-proposed since you recovered.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do with you? It’s not like I’m ever going to leave you.” Keith says dismissively, and hold up, is Lance getting heartburn right now or is he just head-over-heels in love? “But do you understand, Lance? Did you hear what I said? We _cannot_, under _any_ circumstances, allow Shiro to find out about this.”

“I…I feel like you don’t have your priorities straight.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I’m gay.” He shakes Lance, who’s still rebooting from his unintentional declaration of love. “Swear on your life, Lance. Swear you won’t let it slip to _that man_.”

“Dude, you sound like Sasuke—” Lance _squeals_— “what are you—dude, s-stop!”

Keith wiggles his fingers threateningly. Lance covers his armpits. “Not until you swear.”

“Are you actually serious?!”

“As serious as Slav is about the placement of salt and pepper shakers at the dinner table.”

Lance twitches. That’s…pretty goddamn serious. “You’re insane.”

Keith pounces.

“Keith, no—ah! F—stop, you—”

He gets a couple tickles in before Lance squirms away and takes off down the street, shrieking all the while.

“Fucking—stop, man!’

“Swear you won’t tell him!”

“You know he’s going to ask! What am I supposed to say?”

“Just lie!”

“I’m the worst liar there is!”

Lance trips_._

Keith catches him by the back of his jetpack, saving his face from an untimely end—and then proceeds to shove his wiggling fingers into the gap in Lance’s neck guard.

Lance screams. He’s vaguely aware of multiple Levertans turning to stare, but he’s too preoccupied trying to bat Keith’s hand away. “Dude, ssstop—fuck!”

“Swear it!”

“I hate you—fine, fine! I swear, I swear!”

Keith and his devilish hands cease their assault. Lance is left gasping. “Now was that so hard?”

“You—you bastard. I will have my revenge,” Lance pants. “You watch your back.”

Keith bounces on his feet, hands beckoning Lance to fight. “Oh yeah? Bring it, Naruto.”

“I will!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

Lance manages to hold it in for one excruciating second, glaring petulantly.

Keith’s eyelid spasms.

Lance bursts into loud, honking laughter.

Keith follows right after him, and they are so embarrassing. They’re humiliating themselves. They’re in public, on an alien planet, and they’re acting so fucking _ridiculous_.

The Levertans are giving them looks, crossing the street just to avoid them. Allura would disown them if she saw this. Hunk would film it and put it up on Coalition databases.

Lance absolutely does not care at all.

This is the best date he’s ever been on, the easiest, the most breathtaking, and he couldn’t care less if anyone sees just how _amazing_ he feels, how he’s basically bursting with it. 

“Keith,” he gasps as he wipes the tears from his eyes. “Dude, this is—” 

“I can’t breathe,” Keith wheezes. “I’m going to pass out.”

Lance snorts, nearly dissolving into laughter _again, _and right at this moment he glances up and he—

He—

—finds himself staring at love.

This is what love looks like:

A boy, flat on his ass in foreign dirt, howling with delirious laughter, sweat-matted hair stuck to his nose and the tops of his cheekbones. A boy who hasn’t ever really been a _boy_, who grew up too fast and all alone, who wouldn’t have let himself look like this, act like this, in front of anyone a year ago. Love looks like this boy, dressed in worn-out armor and desert dust. This boy, rubbing a grimy hand over his face, with a smile peeking out from under it—a smile that could unravel entire nebulas—this boy peeks up through his fingers, suddenly shy, suddenly self-conscious and—

—and Lance has to tell him, “I love you.”

Lance is on his knees in the middle of the street and he says, “I love you,” like he will die if he doesn’t. He has a swelling sort of ache in the very centre of his being and he can’t breathe for the life of him but it’s _nothing_ close to the panicked suffocation that he’s used to—this is new, this is bright and _good_.

Lance is on his knees, and for this love, this boy, he’d stay on his knees.

Keith stares at him like he knows this. Like he’s just realized or been reminded of the depth of this, of them. Those dark eyes grow heady, become all the more mesmerizing.

“Why are you saying that all of a sudden,” he huffs, lips quirked up. He stands and dusts himself off.

“Aren’t you going to say it back?”

He extends a hand to Lance. “Let’s head back.”

“Hey, hey—you’re seriously not going to say it back?” Lance persists. “Dude?”

Keith tugs him up, too hard, and he goes falling into Keith’s chest. He looks up, affronted, and Keith takes that chance to duck in and kiss him.

Immediately, Lance realizes he’s messed up, because Keith is giving him the kind of kiss that says, _I’m like this because of you. Take responsibility._ Keith is kissing him like he’s on the knife’s edge of desperate. It’s barely appropriate.

He pulls away and fixes Lance with a look. “Let’s head back,” he states again.

“Okay,” Lance squeaks.

Lance doesn’t remember the walk back.

His brain clocks out around the time Keith takes him by the wrist to drag him through the streets and only clocks in again when Keith closes their bedroom door and traps him against it. Keith’s mouth is on his and the heat and pressure of his body is dizzying.

Lance’s chestplate digs into his skin and he fumbles for the clasp, grumbling in frustration. Keith bats his hand away and unlatches it himself, all the while still kissing Lance. Smooth bastard.

Pieces of their armor fall to the floor, muted thuds on the carpet. They work each other open so easily, without even having to look, without having to pull away. Shouldn’t this be harder? Lance would be amazed at their coordination, but the fact that it’s like this for them makes so much goddamn sense. It makes him go hot.

When they’re down to their undersuits, he herds Keith towards the bed.

“Lance,” Keith begins, but whatever else he wants to say is muffled under Lance pushing in, Lance kissing first. Keith groans, quiet, like he can’t help it. Lance is _burning_. He wants to hear more, wants to make Keith cry out. His thumb slips to Keith’s jaw, tilting it up. He slips his tongue into Keith’s mouth.

Keith makes a noise, low and shocked and _needy_.

They fall onto the bed. Lance ends up hovering over Keith, knees on either side of his hips, elbows bracketing his head. Keith loops his arms around Lance’s neck and pulls him in.

They kiss like they’re consumed by hunger. They kiss like they know nothing else. Keith swallows all the noises Lance makes like he needs it, and Lance fists a hand in Keith’s hair like it’s the only thing grounding him.

Lance breaks away first, panting, chest heaving. Keith drags his mouth to the shell of Lance’s ear. His breath is so _hot_; Lance shudders, elbows threatening to give out.

He feels Keith smile against his ear a second before Keith flips them over.

Having Keith bear down on him—pale skin all flushed, eyes half-lidded and pupils blown, hair in disarray—Lance swears he dies a little. How did he get here, how the _fuck_ did he get here. Keith Ko-fucking-gane, his _soulmate_, kiss-drunk and straddling him. He digs his fingers into Keith’s thighs, feeling those muscles flex.

Keith smiles a dark, little smile. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Lance grins helplessly back.

Tortuously slow, Keith reaches out and hooks a finger under the neck of Lance’s suit. He pulls it down, leans in, and licks a wet stripe up Lance’s neck, right where his artery beats.

“Fuck,” Lance whispers.

Keith hums, kissing and licking at his neck. He unlatches the suit, coaxes it over Lance’s shoulders, just enough to give him more to play with.

Heat unfurls in Lance’s gut with every touch of Keith’s mouth. Every one of his nerves gets dragging into this feeling, into this high-strung need to _please. _His mind is gone, is offline, has detached itself from his body. All that’s left is impulse, is desire, is give and take.

He yanks Keith up to his mouth, catches him in the deepest, neediest kiss yet. His hands wind through Keith’s hair and he tugs. Keith groans. Satisfaction blooms in Lance’s chest like a supernova.

Keith breaks for air and their lips separate with wet sound. His mouth descends on Lance’s neck again and he _bites_.

Lance jerks, spine arching, not gasping so much as begging to breathe; he hiccups, air stuttering into him. For a second, his mind goes completely, amazingly_ blank._

Keith laves at the mark with his tongue. His hand is on Lance’s hipbone, pinning him to the bed; the other is fisted in his hair—when did that happen?—gently pulling Lance’s head to the side. He lets more of his weight fall on Lance. Lifts his head and kisses Lance again, just as he presses down with his hips.

Lance short-circuits.

His hips snap up of their own accord. Suddenly, he’s reminded that he’s _hard_. He can’t believe kissing Keith made him forget he had a dick, what the fuck, isn’t it supposed to be the opposite? Fuck. What the fuck.

Keith does it again, grinds down on him mercilessly. He’s hard, too, and that messes with Lance’s head like nothing else. Everything feels—it’s, ah—it’s too much. He rips his head away, moans into the back of his hand. It’s loud, _he’s_ loud. Lance is actually going to _die_.

Keith laughs, soft, shaky, and oh, Lance said that out loud, huh?

“You did.” Keith sounds way too smug about that, so Lance hooks a leg over him and rolls his hips up.

Keith drops his head onto Lance’s shoulder, muffling a curse into Lance’s collarbone. Lance grins, does it again.

“L-Lance, ah—”

“You sound good like this,” Lance breathes. His hands slide down to Keith’s ass and squeezes, right as he grinds up again. Keith gives a stuttering groan. _“Really _good.”

“Sh-shut up,” Keith hisses. He promptly reaches between them and rubs Lance through the suit.

Lance bucks into it, swearing. “Is everything a competition with you?”

“You started it.”

“Are you complaining?”

Keith rubs harder. Lance’s head is reduced to static.

“J-jerk,” he gasps.

Keith kisses him, tasting of satisfaction. Lance melts into the covers. They move together, stuttering hips and spit-slick lips. Keith grabs his wrists and pins them above his head. Lance tests it and Keith tightens his grip, admonishing. He gives a brutal thrust, one that punches a whine out of Lance, that gets him to hike his leg up higher on Keith’s waist, pleading.

“Could you come like this?” Keith asks and Lance gapes at him. “Just with me holding you down and using you like this?”

“What—fuck,” Lance wheezes, glaring up. “I don’t know, _can_ I?”

Can you make me?

Keith’s eyes flash.

Lance has half a second to wonder if that was smart of him to say before Keith proceeds to ruin him.

The next time Keith’s hips come down on Lance’s, it’s clear he’s no longer messing around. Keith sets a relentless pace, rolling his hips against Lance’s so confidently, so shamelessly, that it’s got Lance nearly delirious. Keith’s body moves like water; even through the suit, Lance sees his abdomen flex and ripple. If Lance thought he was too hot to bear before, he’s practically sinful now. He makes sure his cock slides against Lance’s perfectly every time, and the friction is unbearably delicious.

Lance can’t even do anything but lie there and _take it_; Keith won’t budge an inch. Even as Lance shakes and bucks under him, Keith rides his movements like he’s made to. His grip doesn’t let up. He’s got Lance exactly where he wants him.

Shit, this is bad. At this rate, Lance is going to—

“Hey, Lance?” Keith pants.

“W-what?”

The look in his eyes in unreadable. He’s a vision, kiss-bitten lips and wind-blown hair.

“I love you, too,” he says, right as he grinds down harder, sweeter.

Lance comes.

His eyes roll back into his head, mouth open in a wordless sob, and his body shudders with the orgasm Keith’s ripped out of him. The wave of pleasure sweeps him up, drowns him in it. When he surfaces, he feels like he lost time. He slumps back onto the bed.

“Shit,” Keith groans hoarsely. “That’s hot.”

He rubs himself on Lance a couple more times, breathing hard, and then comes with a bitten curse. If Lance hadn’t just come, he might’ve right then, to the feeling of Keith using him like that as he lies there, weak-limbed.

He sighs, sated and suddenly, incredibly lethargic. His fingers wind through Keith’s sweaty hair.

“You’re unbelievable,” he tells Keith. “You had to wait to say it like that?”

Keith hums, smug. “You liked it.”

“Show off. You drive me insane.”

“With my dick—”

Lance shoves him off the bed. “Aaand, the afterglow is ruined.”

Keith just laughs at him from the floor.

After they clean up, Ku’yr comes by with food. Lance throws open the windows to air out the place, even though it means that the heat is soon smothering them. She doesn’t look like she suspects anything, though, so small blessings.

(Keith was largely unhelpful. He just lied there on the carpet as Lance tore their suits off to wash and straightened things out. He’d probably still be lying in his drying mess if Lance didn’t threaten to stop sparring with him for a week if he didn’t take a _shower right now before she gets here, you idiot.)_

They eat dinner by the open windows, cross-legged on the carpet.

“Do you want to go out tomorrow, too?” Lance dips his bread roll in a sauce. He takes a bite, nods in satisfaction. Now that’s good food. He’s going to have to ask for the recipe for Hunk.

“Yeah. Today was fun. It was a good idea.” Keith dangles a string of—cheese?—above his mouth, lets it drop. Lance lobs a yellow grape-sized fruit at him; he snaps it out of the air with his mouth. His face screws up. “Those two things do _not_ taste good together.”

Lance snickers. “Noted.”

“How are you feeling?” Keith asks through his mouthful of food. “No lasting effects from this morning?”

“I’m good. Kind of tired, though, think I might turn in early.”

“Yeah, a nap feels great right about now.” Keith licks the cheese from his fingers, wipes them on a napkin. He glances up and clicks his tongue. He reaches out, thumbs at Lance’s lip. “You eat like a child.”

“Like you’re any better?”

Keith flicks cheese at him.

Lance swipes his finger through the sauce and drags it down Keith’s nose.

It’s inevitable that a minor food fight breaks out. When Ku’yr comes back to take the cart back, she stares at the food decorating their face and clothes. At least they had the mind to keep the food off the carpet.

They end up taking another shower.

They fall into bed that night, content and exhausted in the best way.

_Your cruiserpod had a malfunction. You got separated._

_It did not matter. If anything, it would help to expand. Even just one of you was always enough to terraform in preparation for the colony._

_You were confident that this, too, would be the case, when you landed in dry heat. Although you couldn’t think of a case where your brothers and sisters would want to inhabit a world this disgusting._

_But then the little dirt-suckers got smart. _

_It made your blood boil. Made you salivate, made you hunger for their flesh. How dare they? They should just lie down and die like the worms they were._

_You killed so many of the things. You could see the terror in their stupid little eyes when you slaughtered them. And yet they kept coming. Your rage made you so, so thirsty. Their blood was the only thing that kept you from drying out. You bathed in it._

_And then you got sloppy. Just once._

_But once was enough for the pests. They were waiting._

_They locked you in with clever tricks, those worthless little boxes that <strike>scared</strike> enraged you. They buried you under rubble, under their largest nest. Your spine cracked, snapped. Your organs bled out._

_The sand-eaters got smart._

_But not smart enough. _

_They made a mistake: _

_There is water under their castle. Where there is water, there is life. And they dropped you right in it._

_Even if your body is crushed, as long as your mind remains, it is never over._

Lance’s eyes slam open.

It takes a while for him to slow his breathing. To remember who—where he is. To unclench his fists. The crescents of his nails are tattooed into his palms. The sight of the canopy is tinted red, the light from the stars through the window gone crimson. He blinks and it fades.

He swallows. It feels like it’s coated in sand. Raw in that parched way in the aftermath of hundred screams.

A snuffling noise breaks the quiet, and he looks down to find Keith’s head resting on his chest.

Keith sighs, burrowing into the blankets. His exhales are heavy, on the verge of snoring. He scratches at his chin, but his hand goes slack with sleep halfway through, and his fingers end up dragging his mouth open. He’s going to drool on Lance if he stays like that.

Lance gently moves Keith’s hand away and nudges his mouth closed.

Keith turns into the touch. His breath drifts over Lance’s wrist.

Outside the window, a strange bird calls out.

Lance smooths down the mess of black hair tickling his chin. His hands are shaking. He flexes them. Still the same hands, tanned, worn and calloused. They feel stiff, rubbed raw, somehow. Like all those times he got captured and fought against his restraints until marks showed up on his flesh. He dismisses it, pushes it from his mind.

Instead, he curls his arms around Keith and counts his soulmate’s breaths until sunlight strikes the curtains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, hitting y’all with chapter after chapter: here have some fluff. Now have some angst. Now fluff. Angst. Fluff. Smut. Ang—
> 
> y’all, climbing onto the fridge: this house is a FUCKING nIGHTmARE!!!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna name this chapter Action scenes can suck my dick pt.2
> 
> Also like, sorry in advance :)

Keith Kogane is not an idiot.

He might have idiotic _moments_, but he wouldn’t have made it this far if he didn’t possess some intelligence.

Which is how he knows Lance is hiding something.

At first, he thinks it has to do with the Levertans, or the Cleansing. He’s suspicious of the cave, the water, and the alcove that light cannot penetrate, that swallows Lance like the maw of a monster.

But then he thinks about it more, spends some time hammering it out as he trains, turning it over in his head as he watches Lance eat, and he comes to the cold realization that maybe it has to do with _him._

With his death.

There’s a good chance he’s traumatized his soulmate.

Keith wonders if _he_ himself should be more bothered by dying, but in that harrowing moment, he’d honestly made peace with it. He’d said everything that needed to be said. He hadn’t been scared, only sad that he couldn’t continue the journey with his friends.

Dying is easy.

It’s the getting left behind that’s hard. He’s always known this.

And watching Lance now, sluggishly shrugging on a shirt, Keith acknowledges how odd it is to be on the other side of the equation.

What must it have been like for Lance, to watch Keith die above him?

Lance catches his eye and smiles. It’s strained, but still he tries. “Like what you see?”

Keith closes the distance. His thumb is exceedingly gentle when it rubs at the shadow under Lance’s eye. “You didn’t sleep last night.”

“What can I say, I couldn’t stop thinking about what we did.” Lance winks.

Keith just silently slips his fingers into Lance’s.

Lance freezes. Deflates. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I get it,” Keith says, because he does. Walls and defenses and all that. It’s hard to unlearn. “Will you tell me what’s bothering you?”

Lance brings their clasped hands to his mouth; Keith stares at the way he brushes his lips over their fingers. He exhales, slow and purposeful. “Just another bad dream. I’m dealing with it.”

“…Was it about me, again?”

“Sometimes.” Lance closes his eyes and leans against Keith. “And sometimes, it’s…I don’t know. I don’t know what I see. It makes no sense.”

“Is this a recent development?”

Lance shakes his head, stops, then nods. Finally, he shrugs. “I can’t think,” he confesses. “I don’t—I can’t…”

Keith folds him into a hug. “Hey, it’s alright. We’ll figure it out. We got each other, don’t we?”

Lance clings to his arms.

After a long second, he asks, “Is there something wrong with me?”

“Do you feel like there is?”

“…I just want to stop—have these thoughts. Dreams.”

Keith hums. “Lu’hr will have results from the testing today; maybe they could be the product of hallucinogens.”

“But I was fine yesterday. What—what if there’s nothing? What if it’s—what if I’m the problem?” Lance asks quickly, a touch panicked.

Keith gently pries him off, holding him at a distance. He cups Lance’s face in his palms. Lance stares at him, lips pressed in a thin, trembling line.

“As long as we’re together,” Keith states, “everything will be alright in the end.”

“But—”

“We’re a _team,_ Lance.” Keith leans in, lets their foreheads touch. “Whatever it is, we’ll handle it. Together. Okay?”

A minute passes. Lance sighs against his lips and squeezes his wrists. “Alright, Red, I got it. God, you’re so stubborn.”

Keith pulls him into a kiss, a tender touch of their lips. “Love you.”

“I—love you, too.” Lance huffs a laugh, cheeks pink. “Now get dressed, would you? Ku’yr is going to be here soon.”

Keith does so, thinking of Lance’s words the whole time. He tried his best to reassure Lance, to calm the anxiety that he knows lingers under Lance’s skin, but he’s aware nothing’s actually been resolved.

He hopes Lu’hr has an explanation.

“The tests revealed no toxic or hallucinogenic substances in the cave water,” Lu’hr says. “The inspection team also deemed the cave structure solid and in no danger of collapsing, and the air quality was also tested to be free of toxins.”

“That’s…good,” says Keith’s mouth.

_Ah shit, _goes his mind.

He glances at Lance, sitting on the settee in the robe, his back to Keith. “You’re sure there’s nothing that can react negatively to our bio profiles?”

“We double-checked,” Re’sl confirms. “Everything came up clean.”

“So it’s all good, then.” Lance stands. “I mean, I haven’t felt bad since the first time. Of course there isn’t anything wrong.”

Keith shifts on his feet. “Lance—”

“This is the last cleansing I have to do before the big day, right?” Lance steps towards the water.

“Yes, and then you have tomorrow to rest up,” says Re’sl. “We’ll be having the main event in the city square the day after that. The set up is a lot better there, believe me.”

Lance laughs softly, casting an unreadable glance around the cave. “I’ll bet.” He turns to Lu’hr and Re’sl. “Well, thanks for letting us know the news in person. Don’t let us keep you though, I’m sure you two are busier than ever these days.”

They exchange a glance. “Why do you think we take whatever chance we get to escape down here,” Lu’hr teases. “Don’t tell anyone, but you’re both much better company than the clan nobles I have to entertain.”

Lance pretends to be shocked. “Your Majesty! How bold of you.”

She laughs. “But you’re right, we should get going.”

Re’sl groans quietly. “These days, I wish there was an emergency I could deal with.”

Lu’hr slaps his arm. “Anyways, we’ll see you both later. I was hoping you could join me for the evening meal today. I regret that we haven’t had that chance sooner.”

“Of course,” Lance says and with that, the pair wave goodbye and disappear through the cavern’s entrance.

Keith touches his elbow and Lance turns to him. He searches Lance’s face. “You alright?”

Lance stares at his bare feet. He flashes a smile at Keith. “It’s just water,” he says.

“I’ll be fine.”

** _Now, let’s see._ **

** _What’s this one afraid of?_ **

_They kick him out._

_He scores too low. He fails all his sim tests; he’s crashing hard. It’s a race he loses, rushing to catch up as the material gets harder, gets farther from his understanding._

_On the day that he packs his bags, he catches sight of Hunk and Keith through his open door. The both of them are on their way to class, uniforms ironed flat and sharing easy smiles._

_He calls out to them, but they’re gone._

** _Boring. Let’s go deeper._ **

_He couldn’t save the day._

_He could down a fleet of ships, could blast a battlecruiser to the next century, but he couldn’t save the day._

_Too many people die._

_When Blue lands, when he steps out, his first steps are among a fresh graveyard. Five feet from him is a severed hand, too small to be anything but a child’s. When he falls to his knees, it is among bloodied soil, it is because he is breaking under the weight, brought to a surrender by the sight of millions, dead. _

_When he cries, it is for the people he couldn’t reach. For the people who bet their lives on him, and lost. _

** _Deeper._ **

_“Did you think it wouldn’t end up this way?” Hunk asks._

_“Please,” Lance begs. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”_

_Hunk stares back at him with his empty eye sockets, disappointment in those black bleeding depths. “Oh, Lance,” he says, pitying. “You shouldn’t have dragged me to space.”_

_“I know, I know, I know,” Lance chants, gasping, falling to the ground._

_“Do you?” Pidge questions, on his left. She’s ripped open from sternum to abdomen. Her intestines twitch around on the grass. “Why did you wake up Blue, if you knew?”_

_“I—”_

_“You should’ve stayed home,” Shiro tells him, sounding so, so tired. He’s lying further away, beyond Pidge, half of his body corroding slowly. The stench of it makes Lance retch. “Should’ve never gone to the Garrison. I’d be alive if you hadn’t gone.”_

_“Look at me,” Allura says, and Lance does, head snapping up._

_The glare of some far-off sun is vindictive, blinding. He blinks the spots away and sees Allura and Coran, their bodies nailed to posts by their hands and feet. His gaze drops and finds their heads, lying on the ground, staring right back._

_“Look at us,” Coran demands. “The last of our kind, hunted down and hung like trophies.”_

_“No,” Lance whispers. “No, please. I’m sorry, please, no.”_

_But it’s no use. His hands move on their own, reaching for his rifle, lifting it to his eye. He sights down the barrel, to a target painted stark red on white armor. Everything bleeds away, colour, sensation, surroundings. The team melt into the ground, into their graves, and all that’s left is one man._

_Keith looks so sad._

_There’s a cut on his head. It drips down his nose, into his mouth._

_Lance wants to cry. He wants to stop. But he’s weak. He’s fading. Drowning. Some _thing_ is burying him from inside, wrestling its way into his bones and flesh. It’s laughing. It’s gloating, gleeful and ravenous._

_And Keith doesn’t say a word, just looks away, resigned. Disappointed. If he could feel, Lance’s skin would sting from the tears on his face._

_The thing puts his finger on the trigger and pulls._

_And Lance is engulfed in oblivion._

** _Oh, yes. You’ll do very well, Lance McClain._ **

Lance comes out of the alcove, but Keith doesn’t notice. He comes out and no one notices. Keith was _watching_, but it’s like one moment he wasn’t there and the next, he was.

Lance comes out of the alcove, deadly silent.

The hairs on Keith’s arms rise. Something is wrong, he thinks, why is there something wrong about this?

Then Lance lifts his head. His eyes are red. He stretches out an arm.

His bayard, lying by his clothes, flies across the room and slams into his palm.

The blood drains from Keith’s face.

“_Everybody, run!”_

The first shot is fired into the mass of aides standing shocked-still by the pool. Someone screams. The rest scatter, shrieking. There’s a body on the ground.

Keith is frozen in horror. It’s only when the body shudders, a pained nose leaving it, that he feels something untwist in him. Still alive.

Lance advances, rifle held steady, eye burning crimson down the barrel of it. The water parts for him—it’s, it’s _moving aside for him_.

Keith’s sword falls into his hand. His fingers wrap around the hilt, blood is thundering in his ears, but he can only crouch there, thinking—begging—_don’t make me do this._

Lance takes another shot. It barely misses; toppling the heat lamp over, the Levertan throwing themselves behind the settee just in time, screaming.

Keith jerks into action, planting himself in the way. But he—he doesn’t attack. He _can’t_. “Lance! Lance, snap out of it!”

He pulls up his sword just as Lance fires, _right at him_. The shot deflects off his blade.

Lance keeps going. He steps out of pond, barefooted, in nothing but a drenched robe, and wearing the coldest, the most—most _murderous_ expression Keith has ever seen.

“Lance, _please.” _Keith squeezes the hilt of his sword. He can’t, he can’t, he _can’t._

His soulmate pauses. His gun lowers.

Keith takes a step forward.

Lance swings his gun to the side and shoots one-handed at a fleeing Levertan.

They fall. They don’t move.

And that’s when Keith realizes that this isn’t Lance.

It’s something else, wearing Lance’s face.

—_Keith braces himself for the transformation he’s seen a dozen times now, braces him for the broken-looking kid, braces himself for the blood the beast has so creatively added, the sagging skin and torn ears._

_He braces himself._

_A heartbeat later, Keith is staring at Lance._

_Lance grins, wide and teeth gleaming, but there’s something wrong about it, there’s some_thing_—_

“No,” he whispers. “No.”

Lance aims. Fires.

Keith throws himself in the way again and the shot hits the flat of his blade instead of another body. He stares up at his soulmate, heart railing against his ribs.

What does he do?

His mind is racing. How many Levertans have made it out? How long does he need to stall? Lance just killed someone. What’s wrong with Lance? What’s controlling him? Was this the Levertans’ plan? Did they do this? _Lance just killed someone._

What does Keith do?

_What is he supposed to do?_

_“Move,” _the thing wearing Lance’s face says. Its blazing red eyes are fixed at something over Keith’s shoulder.

Sword still raised, he chances a glance behind.

Ku’yr, huddled behind him and trembling. She’s the only one left in the room.

Shit. Shit, he’s going to have to engage.

“Don’t make me do this,” he pleads. On his knees, he begs. “_Please_ don’t make me do this.”

Lance’s scarlet eyes narrow. _“Move. Or die.”_

“I know you’re in there,” he persists. “You can fight this, Lance, I know you can.”

_“He’s not in control any longer. I am.”_

“I don’t believe that.” Keith rises to his feet slowly, careful to keep his sword down and behind him. “Lance McClain is stronger than anyone I know; you just caught him off-guard. He’s fought off tyrants and monsters, and he’ll defeat you too.”

_“But I am not either. I,” _the thing says,_ “am a Hrtuyi, and we are beyond your understanding, maggot.”_

Ku’yr inhales sharply.

The thing’s eyes snap to her; Lance’s face contorts with bloodlust.

“Run!” Keith yells, rushing in and slashing out.

It’s more of a wild swing than anything meant to hurt, but it drives the thing back. It snarls, tries to swerve around Keith, but he lashes out with a kick and sends it tripping backwards. He winces, mentally apologizes for the bruise that’ll leave.

It snarls, throws the gun and lunges for him. He scrambles back, but it succeeds in knocking his sword from his hand; it goes flying across the room, _shit._

The thing lashes out with a kick to Keith’s face; he blocks it with a grunt. They trade rapid blows, the thing throwing punch after punch and Keith refusing to let any through. He spots an opening; catches its wrist and pulls it in, striking out with a kick of his own.

It ducks, spins, and comes back up with a jab to his gut. He wheezes, bends over and the thing immediately grabs him by the collar and throws him.

For a second, he feels pressure around his neck, a ghostly touch that chokes him, and then it recedes. He coughs, rolls and skids backwards to a stop.

He barely recovers fast enough to block an overhead kick with his arms. He pants under the force of it, feels blood trickle down his nape. Twisting his arms, he pushes the thing away and comes up swinging.

Punch, block, punch, kick, jump, block. The sound of their grunts and the impact of flesh on armor echo through the chamber.

Keith slams his foot onto its knee; it stumbles. He follows up with a blow to its temple. It reels back, teetering, blinking. He grabs its arm, strikes the flesh of its bicep with his fist and then an elbow to its face—it howls, the first noise it’s made since they started.

It goes stumbling back one, two, three steps, and Keith runs and rams his shoulder into its stomach. It falls, right into the water.

He straightens, breathing hard. His arms are going to be bruised; either Lance has been holding back, or this thing has given him extra durability.

The thing gets to its feet. Water laps at its legs.

“Lance,” he tries again. “Can you hear me? I need you to fight back against this, Lance. I believe in you.”

_“You know not what you face,” _it warns him.

And—_fuck that_. Just—fuck whatever that means, he just fought his soulmate like they were both trying to kill the other, he’s a hundred goddamn percent sure about _exactly_ what he’s up against. As if he hasn’t spent nights and days training with Lance, against Lance. As if he and his soulmate don’t know each other’s moves like the pattern of their eyelids when they close them.

As if he doesn’t know what the stakes are, here. As if he’s not staring down his soulmate and seeing all the ways this situation could go so, so wrong.

They’re both getting out of this intact—on his life, he won’t accept _anything else_.

“Of course I _know_,” he spits.

He draws himself up, holds his head high. “I know what I’m facing. I’m facing the man I gave my life for, that I gave my heart to. I’m facing my partner, my rock, my north.

“I’m facing my _soulmate_,” he tells it, lets the assurance and the challenge soak into his words. “And he would _never_ hurt me.”

The thing stills. It stares, wearing a peculiar look. _“Soul…mate…”_

Keith waits. _Come on, come on, Lance, come _on.

_“Soulmate,” _it repeats, “my soul—_his soul—_mate, he’s my—”

It claps its hands over its ears, doubles over, and _shrieks._

Water blasts away from it; the pond _empties _itself, and for a second the cave shudders. Keith is thrown back and he rolls, curls into a ball with his head in his arms. Water rains down, a torrent that drenches him, the ground and cave walls. Barely half of it ends up back in the pond.

He just stays on the ground for a moment, gasping. His body protests when he pushes himself up to his elbows.

Lance lies crumpled at the edge of the pond.

Keith crawls over. “Lance?”

Blood drips from a gash in Lance’s temple; he probably hit his head when he fell. It paints the wet stone pink, spirals from his wound like a watercolour flame.

Keith shakes him. “Lance, wake up. Hey. Hey, I need you with me, here. _Lance.”_

A groan, weak and pained. Lance stirs, lashes fluttering.

“Oh thank god,” Keith breathes. “Hey, sweetheart, hey. Yeah, that’s it, c’mon, open those blue eyes for me.”

“‘eith?” Lance slurs. “What…my head…”

“We’re okay, we’re okay.” He brushes Lance’s hair back. Presses a trembling kiss to his forehead. “You’re going to be fine. We’ll figure this out.”

Lance hums, raises his head and looks around blearily. He stops at the sight of the two bodies lying on the floor. “Keith?” he asks, sounding clearer and much more afraid.

“We’ll figure it out,” Keith repeats.

Lance looks at him. His eyes are back to blue. So, so blue, and wide with realization. With fear.

“Keith,” he whispers. “Keith, _what did I do?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I’m sorry!!!!!
> 
> Yeah ok u got me, I’m not really
> 
> On an unrelated note, recently I’ve been wondering if I should get evaluated for sadistic tendencies


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we’ve checked off physical hurt now it’s time forrrr—you guessed it— emotional hurt!!! Your prize is this chapter

It doesn’t take long for Re’sl’s soldiers to arrive. Keith’s already applied first aid to the two injured Levertans by the time they come bursting through the archway.

Lance tried to help but after the first one flinched away from him, he’s sequestered himself on the far side of the cave.

“What happened?” Re’sl demands, gaze flicking between them all.

Keith steps aside for the medics. He faces Re’sl and asks, “What’s a Hrtuyi?”

Re’sl stares. “What?”

“Lance came out of the water and he was—fuck, he was possessed or something. It called itself a Hrtuyi.” Keith scrubs a hand through his soaked hair. “It attacked us with his body. Said it was in control now, and that Lance wasn’t.”

Re’sl continues staring. Behind him, his soldiers have frozen, waiting on orders. All of them have gone pale.

“You’re sure that is what it said?”

“Yes. Ku’yr was there when it spoke, you can check with her.”

Re’sl closes his eyes and breathes deeply. He addresses his men, “Get the aides out of here, then station yourselves a level above. Do _not_ let anyone through except for Her Majesty, and even then, comm me first. Understood?”

“Yessir!”

Within minutes, the cave is empty.

When Re’sl continues to stand there, silently frowning at the wet rock under his feet, Keith decides to check on Lance. He grabs Lance’s clothes and a towel, lying by the overturned heat lamp.

He kneels by Lance and touches his elbow. “Lance? Re’sl is here. We might need to debrief.”

“Are they okay?” Lance asks quietly, knees to his chest and head hidden in his arms. “The aides?”

Keith hesitates, glancing at Re’sl. “I patched them up as best as I could. They were both still conscious when they were carried out, so that’s good.”

Lance’s shoulders loosen.

“Here.” Keith hands him the towel and his clothes. “They’re kind of damp, but it’s better than what you have on.”

Lance’s hands twitch around the bundle in his lap. His eyes are red-rimmed, shadowed. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“Don’t,” Keith tells him, sounding more cross than he means to. “If you’re trying to take the blame for this—”

“I’m not _trying_,” Lance interrupts angrily, and Keith’s just glad he’s more animated now, “it’s clearly my fault!”

“I will have to disagree.” Re’sl stops a few feet from them. He regards Lance with a strange look, somewhere between trepidation and regret. “If anything—if this is what I suspect it is…the fault is ours, for exposing you to this.”

He looks away, gaze roving over the cave, the half-empty pool, and the alcove. “What I do not know,” he murmurs, “is if this is the same one, and if it is, then how it survived.”

“What are you talking about?” Keith demands. “Did you know this would happen?”

Understanding dawns on Lance’s face. He swallows. “The Kxri.”

Re’sl nods. “You read the files, I take it?”

“Wouldn’t we be dead right now, if it was here? Wouldn’t it have controlled more than just me and made us all kill each other?”

“Perhaps it’s weakened. It must be, if you were able to snap out of it.”

An uneasy looks crosses Lance’s face. “I didn’t really—”

Keith holds up a hand. “Hold the fuck up. Are you guys talking about the demon alien thing you _dropped a building on fifteen years ago? _You think it’s _alive?”_

“It…seems unlikely,” Re’sl admits. “But Lance’s experience is something I’ve seen over a hundred times during the war.”

“So, what, you think it’s been in hiding for all this time? Where’s its body? Why would it attack now? Why would it attack _Lance?”_ Keith demands, every question leaving him more and more agitated.

It’s Lance that reaches out to comfort now; his shoulder presses up against Keith’s. Keith exhales forcefully and rubs the bridge of his nose.

“Are we waiting on Queen Lu’hr?” Lance asks. Re’sl nods. “Is that wise? She might not be safe with me like this.”

“I’ve already sent word to her on the situation. She’ll come prepared. Psi-null devices and such.”

“And then what?”

“And then,” Re’sl says, “we figure out how we are going to deal with this.”

The Lu’hr that comes down to them is not the same Lu’hr that they’ve seen the past few days.

She marches into the cave dressed for battle, flowing robes switched out for a dark uniform that has Keith mistaking her for another soldier. A sleek blaster is strapped to her waist, along with some other devices Keith can’t identify. Around her head is circlet, but not one made of gold or jewels. Its design is similar to the mind-sharing thing Coran made the team put on at the beginning of paladin training.

“Your Majesty.” Lance rises, shifting his weight nervously.

Keith eyes her blaster. He can’t read the look on her face.

She stops a few feet away and regards them evenly. Her hand moves to her belt; Keith tenses. She grabs one of the smaller devices and holds it up towards Lance. It flashes a light over him and then beeps, three times. She does the same to Keith, who gets a single buzz.

Lu’hr and Re’sl’s mouth go flat. She pockets the device.

“That was a scanner,” Lu’hr tells them, and she finally lets the blank mask fall from her face. Keith’s gut churns at the unease he finds there. “It’s a portable version of the one we used in the war to detect psi-activity. When the Kxri possesses other living things, a part of the host’s brain lights up with neurotransmitters that psi-null organisms aren’t supposed to produce.”

Lance swallows. “And do I…?”

She nods grimly. “I am sorry.”

He drops his gaze. “So it really is still alive.”

“But it should not be possible.” Lu’hr frowns. “There have been no sightings. When and where could it have come into a close enough range to affect you? And why hasn’t it possessed more people?”

Re’sl sends her a look, a type of silent communication that Keith shares with Lance, and she clicks her tongue. “Right, it was probably weakened. It would have needed time to recover, to build up power, then. And as for where it’s been hiding this entire time…”

It’d have to be someplace secluded, Keith decides. Some place that would have little to no traffic up until Lance stumbled on it. Assuming the Kxri would take advantage of any living thing to host itself, the fact that it’s showing up now suggests that it’s been unable to move around and control others, either because it was too weak or because it was trapped. Most likely, it’d be a place that only Lance has set foot in since the end of the war—

Keith’s brain screeches to a halt right as Lance abruptly turns, nearly smacking into him.

He follows Lance’s line of sight and is not surprised to find himself staring at the alcove. All at once, the darkness becomes foreboding.

“Your Majesty,” Keith says slowly, “you said Lance was the first participant in the cleansings since the war. Has anyone been down here in that time?”

“No,” Lu’hr replies, realization dawning on her. She pulls out the scanner and aims it at the alcove.

It beeps. Three distinctive little chirps.

Beside him, Lance stops breathing.

Re’sl motions for them to back up. Silently, they slink across the cave and pass under the archway, Keith scooping up the abandoned bayards on the way.

Once they’re under the warm torchlight of the corridor, they make haste for the exit.

“It was there the entire time,” Lance whispers, face pale.

“It must be severely weak,” Lu’hr says, “if it was only able to possess you, in a room full of other people. Its range can’t have extended past the pool. During the war, it could attack from one side of this city to the other.”

“Shit,” Keith breathes. “Does this mean it’ll die easier this time?”

“One can hope.”

“Orders?” Re’sl inquires lowly.

“Place a lockdown on the cave. Keep the situation on the down low until we’ve met with the council.” She frowns. “Safety is of the highest priority, however. Evacuation?”

“Would cause widespread panic and speculation. With the city so populated right now for the festival, it wouldn’t be wise to do anything drastic.”

She hums. “Most of the guests and staff are levels above the cave, anyway. Alright, send out an alert to your most trusted soldiers and my council. And activate the tech around the Citadel.”

Re’sl nods and turns on his comm. “Lieutenant, we’re coming up now. I need you to place the Citadel under red alert—on a need-to-know basis. We don’t need mass panic.”

_“Sir, what’s the situation?”_

“Contact with hostile individual. Psi-active. Suspected to be related to, or is, the previous…offender.”

A sharp inhale.

“Gather the council and station our men primarily on the lower levels. No one is to enter underground, full stop. No excuses, nothing, not until the Queen has convened with the council and made a decision. And prep a room for containment.”

_“Understood.”_

Lu’hr signals abruptly at Re’sl, who nods.

“One more thing.” Re’sl looks over his shoulder at them, lingering on Lance, whose eyes shine feverishly under the torchlight. “I need you to locate Wu’vur’s old team. I don’t care if they’re sleeping halfway across Levert, get them on the line.

“We’re going to need their expertise again.”

Under armed guard, Keith and Lance are escorted to a room on the lower level, on the opposite side of where the cave is located. By the time they arrive, it’s been hastily outfitted in psi-null tech from top to bottom. It’s a much smaller fit, smaller than Keith’s original quarters, but it doesn’t matter to either of them.

There was no question of whether Keith would be rooming separately; he appreciates that the Levertans recognize that.

Once their belongings are brought to them, they shut themselves in, and outside the door, Re’sl places a guard and flips the switch for the tech.

Keith listens to the near-imperceptible whine of it for a moment. Beside him, Lance sags against the wall, relief painted stark on his face.

“You okay?”

He nods. “Just—glad they have something that could stop the Kxri from…”

Keith takes his hand and squeezes. “You want first shower? I can send the team a report while you do.”

Lance bites his lip. “You don’t mind?”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I did, idiot.”

A fond smile flashes across Lance’s face at the name-calling, and he squeezes back before heading for their bags.

Keith writes up a barebones report and sends it off. He gets an incoming missive from Re’sl and opens it up.

_>_ _News on the injured: both in the clear. Recovery won’t take longer than a day. No lasting damage._

_> Doctors say shots were in non-vital areas but clean. Accurate._

_> Small comfort but if he wanted them dead, they would be. His resistance is commendable. Many of my people fell to it immediately._

_Thanks for the update. I’ll let him know. <_

_> Have you contacted the rest of Voltron?_

_Just sent off a report. Don’t know when they’ll reply. <_

_Might have to assume we’ll have to deal with it ourselves. <_

_> I’ll let the council know. Meeting starting. Will let you know what we decide. You sure you don’t want to attend? We’re discussing your soulmate here._

_He needs me here. I trust you to not let them throw Lance into the fire. <_

To a certain extent, he does. He has trust in Voltron’s _reputation_, as egotistical as it is to admit. There’s a certain security granted in the implicit understanding that if anything happened to either of them, then the Levertans would be regarded as the ones who put the Coalition’s strongest weapon at stake.

If worst comes to worst, Keith will just sedate Lance’s self-sacrificial ass and fly out of here with their lions. And once Lance is safe, he’ll come back with the rest of the team to fix this.

_> I don’t need to. Already looks like they’re more concerned that we as a people have been negligent. I do agree we should have made sure the Kxri was gone. It’s too dangerous to have left it up to chance like that._

_Let’s make sure it doesn’t survive a second time then. <_

_> Agreed._

The missives stop after that, so Keith assumes they’ve gotten down to particulars and dismisses the holoscreen.

The bathroom door opens, steam pouring out. Lance emerges in a loose tee and boxers. His eyes are red-rimmed, downcast.

“Hey, just got word from Re’sl,” Keith says. “The injured are okay. They’ll be fully recovered by tomorrow.”

Lance slumps, tension released, and he staggers over to the narrow bed, falling back onto it.

“That’s good,” he whispers, covering his face with his arms. “That’s really…good.”

“Are _you _okay?”

“Does it matter?” he snaps. Almost immediately, he sends Keith an apologetic look. “Sorry, I just—I’m just frustrated.”

“Lance…”

“I’m okay, really. Go take a shower.”

Keith gives him a dubious look but decides to leave it alone this time.

A shower really does sound amazing right now. He grabs a fresh set of clothes and steps into the bathroom. It’s much smaller than the other one, but thankfully, there’s still a mirror above the sink.

Otherwise, cataloging his injuries would be harder.

He takes off his jacket and his shirt, both damp and streaked in dust. The movement pulls on his sore muscles and he winces, feeling it now that the adrenaline’s worn off. He looks at himself in the mirror.

Angry red bruises have already sunk into him. His torso is dotted in purple, a particularly large one right under his sternum. In some places, like the stretch of skin down his forearms, which he used to block attacks, has split, darkening faster and crusted with blood.

Around his neck are bands of purple. Bruising, from a choke-hold delivered with telepathy. It could’ve crushed his windpipe, if the Kxri hadn’t let up when it did.

It slowly sinks in; he could’ve died, just like that. He swallows. Could’ve died _again._ And Lance would’ve—

The door clicks open. “Hey, did I leave my—”

He jumps and his hand goes lurching for the handle. Too late.

Lance stands in the doorway, horror dawning on his face. His gaze skips all over Keith: chest, arms—it snaps to his neck. His eyes go glassy-wide.

“Don’t—” Keith steps in close, tries to fill Lance’s vision with _him_, tries to draw his gaze from the injuries. “Hey, don’t look at that. I’m fine. Just—hey, my eyes are up here, McClain.”

Lance doesn’t respond to the weak attempt at teasing. “I did this,” he says, dull, flat-eyed. His hand hovers over Keith’s stomach and the bruise that blossoms there.

Keith seizes his hand. “No, baby, _no_. This wasn’t you.”

“But it _was.”_ Lance wrenches himself away, breathing hard. “It was me, it was my own hands, it was _nobody’s fault but my own.”_

The look on his face is so wretched, so hateful. All directed at himself. Keith desperately wants for it to disappear.

“Lance, it was _mind control. _You were possessed, it was _using _you, none of its actions were yours. But you fought it off. Re’sl said no Levertan has managed to resist the Kxri for more than a minute.”

“But that wasn’t me—it was _you.”_ Lance shakes his head. “I was in there, stuck, and I could barely understand anything, but it was _your_ voice that got me out. If you weren’t there, I would’ve killed someone.”

“Lance—”

_“All_ of this was my fault,” he continues hoarsely. “If I had been smarter, or strong enough to snap out of it sooner, this all could’ve been avoided. I should’ve noticed what was happening. Now people are hurt—_you’re_ hurt. This was supposed to be an easy mission and I’ve—it’s all messed up now.”

A familiar frustration bubbles up in Keith. He’s not mad _at_ Lance, it’s just— “Do you really think you could have seen this coming?”

“There were _signs_—every time I went in, I’d see things. I should’ve paid it closer attention.” Lance looks away, expression torn. “It was _obvious.”_

That’s it. He’s heard enough.

“You are an _idiot_,” Keith says flatly. He jabs a finger into Lance’s chest when he makes to protest. “No, listen to me—are you serious? Who in their right mind would see a connection between a couple of nightmares and being mind controlled? We _both_ thought you were still dealing with me dying—do you think _I_ should’ve seen it, too?”

“No, but—”

“Why are you always holding yourself to such impossible standards?” Keith demands.

Lance’s mouth snaps shut. He looks like Keith’s just slapped him.

“A telepathic being—something humans have _no_ natural defenses against—used your body against your will, to do things that you would _never_ do. How is that remotely your fault? You didn’t ask for it, for any of this!

“You—” He makes an inarticulate noise. “Do you even know _how much you amaze me?”_

“…What?” Lance croaks.

“You’re _amazing,”_ Keith repeats. “Everything about you is kind and warm—everywhere we go, you put people at ease. It’s like you look at an ocean of faces and can’t help but see family—see people you love—you can’t help but care. Each living being _matters_ to you. We run mission after mission, we battle for days on end, and you never give anything but your best. I see it when you tire out, when you’re running on fumes, and you might grumble about it—but you don’t stop. When you know there’s people counting on you to save them, you _never_ stop.

“Even now, you’re thinking of the danger you present to the Levertans, aren’t you? About how you feel like you woke up something that should’ve stayed buried? You’re thinking that you need to fix this, or that you need to remove yourself from the equation, because you can’t let the Kxri get a foothold in your head any more than it already has. Am I right?”

Lance stares, still shell-shocked. He doesn’t deny it.

“You try so hard, all the time, although you never show it. You play it off, act like you don’t care, and it used to piss me off because I didn’t get that that was just how you dealt with the pressure. But now I know better than anyone else, how seriously you take your duty,” Keith says, quieter. “And it makes no sense to me that you don’t think you’re ever good enough.”

Lance’s breathing hitches.

Keith takes his hand; Lance lets him this time, expression disbelieving and so, so lost. “Why don’t you see yourself the way I see you?” he asks.

A tear slides down Lance’s cheek.

“I trust you,” Keith tells him. “More than anything, I have _faith_ in you.”

“Stop,” Lance whispers.

“Do you trust _me?”_ Keith asks. Lance just closes his eyes and grips Keith’s hand back; a wordless admission. “Then won’t you trust me with this, too? Won’t you trust that I’m right?”

“I _hurt_ you,” Lance says, voice thread-thin, strung tight. “I promised and I—how could you believe in me, after I hurt you?”

“Because you _didn’t_ do this to me, and I’ll say it until you agree.”

Slowly, wearily, Lance sets his head on Keith’s shoulder. He’s trembling. His shoulders, so broad, are now bowed, curling in on themselves. Keith slides his free hand into the damp hairs at Lance’s nape.

The water from Keith’s clothes is drying on his skin, raising goosebumps and teasing shivers up his back. His pants are still clinging to his legs, cold and uncomfortable. The floor under his feet is hard and unforgiving on his aching limbs. Lance’s forehead, Lance’s neck, Lance’s hand, are the only points of warmth in this place, this moment.

“You keep dying.”

Three words. Unassuming on their own. Harmless in separation. But right here, right now, all together they reveal a hopelessness, an anguish that has been allowed to fester, to consume.

Lance speaks, and it is a plea for repentance.

“I remember flashes of—of the Kxri’s life, but sometimes…sometimes it makes me think of you. It forces me to see what I fear most.” Lance breathes in deep. “This time, when I went under…it made me kill you.”

His hand hovers over Keith’s abdomen. Not over the fresh bruise, but over a spot that is free of dirt or blood. A spot on his left, right under his ribs, where the skin is still a bit shiny, a bit tender, freshly knitted together.

“How could you believe in me,” Lance whispers, lips against Keith’s collarbone, “after I hurt you?”

Keith blinks, eyes stinging. He hates this. He hates this so goddamn much. How did he miss this? How long has Lance felt like this, endured this, all on his own? What’s been done to him, to make him accumulate blame like a magnet, to make him think Keith’s death was _his_ fault?

And what can Keith do? What can he say, to make that burden lighter? He doesn’t know; he hates it.

_How could you believe in me,_ Lance says.

It sounds a lot like, _how could you love me?_

Keith’s answer is:

“Easily.”

His answer is, “With all my heart. With my entire being, with everything that I am.

“I stood in front of that thing, no shield, no sword—I stood there, and you know what I told it? I said, ‘Lance would _never_ hurt me.’” He turns his face into Lance’s hair, eyes sliding shut. “I trusted you, and I was right to do so. I was _right_; you’d never _ever_ hurt me.”

Belief. Trust. Faith. These are things he has for Lance, that Lance has for him. But honestly, those words aren’t quite right. Because underneath, they imply betrayal. They can be broken. They are inherently vulnerable and will only ever expose their weakness to the people who are closest, the people who shouldn’t ever take advantage, and yet are the only people who ever do.

This conviction he has for Lance, and that he knows is returned in equal fervor, is more like a fact, a given; sunlight is warm, snow is cold.

Lance is kind, and Lance won’t ever hurt him.

It is fact. It is knowledge, it is unbreakable. Infallible.

Keith speaks, and it is an absolution Lance has never needed and will never need.

And it seems, this time, Lance hears it. This time, he understands it, finally.

When he crumples to the floor, frame wracked with silent sobs, Keith catches him. He always will.

This, too, is fact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btch listen don’t even start ok I get it, I know—I made my OWN STUPID ASS CRY OKAY. THESE BOYS I S2G
> 
> I really missed writing from keith’s pov. 1) bc I love him. obvs. and 2) bc I can tell lance exactly why I love him too, thru keith. (and I’m gonna be a lil petty here but I hated how the show made lance so shallow when dealing with the war like they made it out as if he only cared abt the glory. I thought it was dumb bc lance comes across as very sensitive and empathetic to me.)
> 
> Also idk if I got keith’s message across right. When he says that lance won’t hurt him, he doesn’t mean like they’ll never fight or get frustrated and say shit to each other bc like lolol that’s what their entire beginning dynamic was based on. he means like lance is thoughtful, and lance won’t ever do shit that he knows will really hurt keith, like leaving him. lance knows him now, knows what makes him tick, and lance will always think his actions through to make sure it won’t devastate keith. He won’t go off on his own, won’t get it in his head that keith can’t be trusted on his own, that lance needs to be overprotective, bc that’s not how it works with them. They might fight over who kicked who out of bed last night, but when it comes down to it, they would both rather die before turning on the other.
> 
> …shit I can’t go five fucking seconds without getting in my klance feelings huh


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate pretending I know how to plot. Why do I choose to do this. Why can’t I be satisfied writing shorter fics. @god explain why u made me the way I am

The Levertans send for them around noon.

Lance doesn’t remember falling asleep. The exhaustion—from the possession, the aftermath, the emotional upheaval—it knocks him out completely.

He wakes to Keith sitting in bed next to him, frowning at his vambrace’s holoscreen. When he notices that Lance is awake, something between resignation and fear steals across his face.

He’s been in communication with Re’sl since Lance fell asleep, and as Lance sluggishly swallows down a plate of food, he reveals that the Citadel has already tried and failed to retrieve the Kxri.

The Levertans figured that since he was able to snap out of its control, then whatever’s hiding in the alcove likely contained the core of the Kxri. Armed in psi-null tech, they went back down with to capture the main host and destroy the alien fully this time.

They didn’t count on the simple problem of not being able to reach the host.

Scans indicated that the host was reptilian in nature, no bigger than a finger, which has let it burrow into crevices in the stone so deep that excavating it would compromise the cave’s structural integrity. Attempts to lure it out with food or the like would be useless, considering it no longer has the mind of an animal. The Kxri is in there, and it’s aware of the situation that it’s in.

That’s where Lance comes in.

Keith tells him, in halting words, that they think the Kxri will only emerge if it senses him.

Because with him as bait, it knows it has a fighting chance.

Because with him as bait, the Levertans are a little more confident in containing it. They think he can resist it a second time.

If he agrees to it, the plan will be for him to enter, outfitted in containment tech so that when the Kxri jumps ship, he can get knocked out and essentially become its prison. The Levertans will then strap him to a machine that will kill the Kxri’s psychic presence without harming him. Hopefully. That last part depends heavily on Wu’vur’s team and their ability to rise to the challenge and cobble something together on such short notice.

All in all, not the worst situation they’ve been in. Lance doesn’t relish being caught under the Kxri’s control again, but as long as there are fail-safes, he’s fine with it.

“I’ll do it.”

Keith isn’t surprised. “I’ll let them know.”

He goes back to his holoscreen and Lance burrows into the blankets. They don’t speak of what happened earlier.

Lance stares sightlessly up at the ceiling and wonders what he’s supposed to feel right now.

It’s not that things are awkward now, or tense. It’s not as if the foundations of who they are have been uprooted, like they have to relearn each other or anything. Things are still easy, talking is still easy. Keith’s still sitting here, thigh pressed to Lance’s arm, and if Lance wanted to, he could put his head on that thigh and Keith wouldn’t mind.

But there’s a sense of fragility in the air, like a wound they didn’t know they had, finally beginning to scab over.

Keith’s words are still ringing in Lance’s ears. An echo of it—of that certainty—exists in his head, being turned over and around, examined and assessed. He doesn’t know if he agrees. Not yet. Right now, he’s still silenced by Keith’s honesty.

Keith doesn’t blame him. He never has.

And that’s…yeah, that’s a little mind-blowing. Because, logically, it’s an obvious conclusion, based off the fact that Keith is a good person who wouldn’t hold a grudge for something that stupid, but—well. It’s still nice, to get confirmation. To hear it said, and said so strongly.

He’s drawn out of his thoughts when Keith says, “Re’sl messaged. They’re going to need the rest of today to set everything up.”

“I thought it’d take longer. Aren’t they inventing a whole new machine for me?”

“Yeah, but I doubt they’ve been slacking these past years. A lot of their tech is rooted in anti-telepathy, if you look closely.”

“Your first contact really shapes the way you see the rest of the universe, huh.”

Keith nods. “We’re lucky they didn’t become too hardened by it, or they wouldn’t have been so receptive to the alliance.”

“Do they need us to do anything in the meantime?”

“He said there’s no obligation, but we’re welcome to join.”

Lance is kind of dreading getting up. “We probably should. That’d be the responsible thing to do.”

“I’d feel better if I understood what they planning to stick you in,” Keith agrees.

Lance groans and heaves himself up. “Alright, where did they say they were meeting?”

Keith’s over by the containment unit with the scientists and the engineers. His eyebrows are furrowed, mouth pursed, and he nods along as the Levertans explain something to him. As Lance watches, he gestures to a component, head titled. His question is met by several enthusiastic responses.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but he’s not your team’s engineer, yes?” Ku’yr asks.

“No, that’d be Hunk,” Lance replies. “Why?”

“He’s still trying to follow along; determined, isn’t he?”

Lance props his cheek with his fist. The nullifying circlet on his head shifts around and he winces as a strand of hair is momentarily caught in the metal. “You don’t know the half of it. Once he gets it in his head to do something, nothing short of a natural disaster will stop him.”

They’ve been here since midday and it’s nearing the hour when the Levertans retire for the night. Lance is exhausted. He tried following along the first three hours but was forced to sit on the sidelines when he got dizzy and nearly face-planted onto a laser-cutter.

At the point, he’d have been fine going back to bed, since the Levertans clearly know what they’re doing and don’t seem inclined towards sabotage, but Keith looked like he wanted to stay for the final assembling of the unit. And since neither of them felt comfortable letting each other out of their sight, Lance decided to stay.

It’s not like it’s a hardship for him to recline on a plush chair and periodically snack on fruits, anyway. Having to wear the headgear for eight hours is a bit annoying, but since nobody knows how much of the Kxri might still remain in him—if any—it’s better to be cautious. When he’s outside of the room, he has to have it on at all times. Hopefully it won’t be a concern for long, if everything goes well tomorrow.

“I think it’s sweet, how dedicated to your safety he is,” Ku’yr comments.

Lance glances away, cheeks warming, because yeah, it…kind of, actually, really is super fucking sweet, and he’s been trying not to think about it—he’ll end up curling into a pile of smitten uselessness on the floor if he does.

“Oh, looks like he’s satisfied his thirst for knowledge,” she says, standing. “I’ll find a guard to lead you back.”

Lance gives her his thanks and watches as Keith approaches him.

“Ready to go?” he asks, when Keith comes to a stop in front of him.

Keith nods, gaze fixed on him. He extends a hand. Lance grabs it and pulls himself to his feet, but when he makes to let go, Keith holds fast.

“Something wrong?”

Keith laces their hands together, expression contemplative. “Are you sure about this?” he asks. “About tomorrow?”

“Isn’t it too late to back out now?”

“We could always wait for the team,” he replies noncommittally.

Lance shakes his head. “I’m ready. I won’t make the Levertans wait around in potential danger another day.”

The corner of Keith’s mouth quirks up, slowly. He looks so fond, it hurts. “I thought you’d say that.”

Lance bites his lip.

“Alright, let’s get some rest. They said you’ll need all the brain capacity you can spare for tomorrow, and we both know you don’t have much to begin with.”

He punches Keith’s arm. “You’re impossible. How can you be sweet one second then so rude the next?”

Keith only chuckles, waving goodbye to the Levertans as he tugs Lance out the door.

On a sudden urge, Lance glances back. He catches sight of the containment unit, the wires spreading from it like parasitic vines, the faint blue glow under its hood, the restraints hiding just under the panels of the bed. For a long second, the image etches itself in his mind’s eye.

The door slides shut with a hiss.

Deep underground, something squirms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> u ever edit ur writing so many times u can’t even recognize if things make sense anymore? That’s the mood rn. This plot could have so many holes and I wouldn’t even know (。_。)


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now entering the final stretch folks please keep ur arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times and ur screams muffled if ur reading this late at night I am not liable for any angry housemates, much love & thank

The Citadel is the busiest its ever been. Preparations for the festival tomorrow are underway and the aides are rushing around in a perpetual state of panic. The windows are wide open, as usual, the sunlight draping itself over every possible surface, and a rare, fresh breeze has picked up. Beyond the Citadel walls, the city has gained more visitors, coming in for the festivities. Booths have cropped up, selling lanterns, fans, shawls and shirts decorated with the face of Sal’ra, the water deity. Workers on hover-platforms are stringing up light fixtures, steadily working their way down the streets.

Everyone is too busy to notice the extra guards stationed around the Citadel and if they do, they’ll only assume it’s for Cleansing reasons.

They wouldn’t be wrong, technically.

“Whoa,” Lance breathes as he steps into the cave.

It’s almost completely unrecognizable. A force field encircles the entire interior of the cave; as Lance and Keith step through the archway, it seals up behind them. The place has been drained of water, lights are stationed around, banishing the shadows. A smaller force field separates the alcove from the rest of the cave and soldiers stand in a loose circle around it, attentive. Their usual energy blasters have been replaced with psi-null weapons; likely so that if they get possessed, they won’t cause too many casualties, grim as that sounds.

On one side of the cavern, generators line the wall with wires as thick as Lance’s thigh snaking their way over to where the containment unit sits inside a hastily-erected quarantine room. Wu’vur’s team are skittering around, doing last-minute adjustments. Everyone is outfitted in the psi-null headgear.

Wu’vur steps up beside them. “It’s the most we could manage in a day. Moving the containment unit down here took up a chunk of time.”

“Everything looks great; really secure. Are we starting yet?”

“We’re just waiting on Re’sl. The Queen sends her well wishes, but per protocol, she can’t exactly be here.”

Lance nods. “Should I get suited up now?”

The Levertans have made a suit from fibers of the same material that exists in all their psi-null tech. It’s one of many experimental measures taken to ensure the Kxri stays contained. His headgear is also swapped out for something more heavy-duty; it goes all over his head and face, over the bridge of his nose and around his neck and under his chin.

“It looks like a muzzle,” he remarks. “A weird sci-fi kink muzzle. I’m beginning to sense a theme with the stuff you guys make me wear.”

Keith hides a grin behind his fist.

Wu’vur steps away, looking him over critically. “That should do it. Got any questions for us?”

“How are you guys going to knock me out when that thing takes over?”

He purses his lips. “Not sure if I should tell you that. It can go looking through your memories and we’ll need every advantage we can get.”

Lance rubs his brow, frowning. “Right. I’ll leave it to you, then.”

“It’ll turn out alright.” Wu’vur clasps his shoulder. “I’m going to look over the system one more time, give you a moment to center yourself.”

“Thanks.”

Wu’vur’s mouth quirks up. “I should be thanking you, putting your life on the line for us. You Voltron people sure are something else, huh?”

“Ah, that’s not true,” Lance laughs. “Anyone would do the same; there’s a lot of good people out there, you know?”

That makes Wu’vur pause. He blinks, a thoughtful look settling on his face.

“Yeah, he does that,” Keith says dryly.

Lance flushes. “A-anyway, I’ll just. Be over there. Let me know when we’re ready.”

He drags Keith with him to the side, in a spot out of everyone’s way. They lean against the forcefield and let its soft humming fill the silence. He decides to take Wu’vur’s advice and closes his eyes, starts counting his breaths. The bustle of the crew echoes through the chamber, washing over him. He drops his shoulders, relaxes his face, pays idle attention to the heat coming off Keith.

He opens his eyes again, and he’s Lance, paladin of the Blue Lion. He’s ready.

“All good?” Keith asks quietly.

He nods and right then, Re’sl steps into the cave. Wu’vur, standing by the alcove, turns to look at them. It’s time.

Lance pushes off the forcefield.

“Wait.”

Keith circles his fingers around Lance’s wrist. He tugs, just enough to get Lance to face him.

He closes the distance, leans his forehead against Lance’s. His breath ghosts over Lance’s lips. Within a moment or two, they sync up, inhaling as one, exhaling as one.

Around them, the noise dies down as people settle at their stations, waiting. The atmosphere calms right along with them. No one interrupts.

A beat, then together, they step back, turning to the room in unison.

“Let’s do this.”

A presence steps into the hovel that’s been its prison for too long now.

Deep within the rock, it wriggles uncertainly. It wonders if they’re stupid enough to try again. It reaches out, brushes a light touch against that spark of a mind and—oh. It’s the one from before, the insecure little thing that was so fun to play with.

What is this? A sacrifice? A ploy? They’re offering it a fighting chance, huh?

Well, it would hate to disappoint.

Even with the light shining directly into the alcove, something about the barrenness of it is menacing. It’s cold. Lance exhales; his breath leaves his mouth in a thin cloud.

He stops just beyond the archway. His shadow plants itself on the stone before him. He shifts on his feet, uneasy at the sight of it.

“Anything?” Wu’vur calls to him.

“Not yet,” he shouts over his shoulder. “What should I be looking out for—”

He catches a glimpse of a slithering body emerging from the rock and has a second to think, _fuck—_

—and then he’s thinking of nothing at all.

When Lance’s body drops to the ground, Keith almost decides, _to hell with this, I’m calling our lions and we’re leaving_.

He clenches his fists and stands his ground, instead.

“It’s made contact, ready yourselves!” Re’sl barks.

His soldiers raise their weapons, and it’s only the fact that Keith knows what they’re planning that stops him from snarling at them.

What they’re hoping for is this: right now, Lance’s suit and headgear are deactivated. When the Kxri takes the bait and fully leaves its host for Lance, Wu’vur will activate both, and that, along with the force field, will keep the Kxri from controlling anyone else, or jumping to another host.

Lance’s body twitches.

A hand plants itself on the ground. The body pushes itself to its knees. Tremors wrack its frame for a moment before—with a growl, the Kxri takes full control.

A faint laugh travels through the cave.

The thing turns around, eyes blazing scarlet, and it grins so wide it’s as if the corners of Lance’s mouth have split. _“You insects gave him up so easily.”_

It walks up to them. Keith abruptly, viciously decides he hates the way it moves in Lance’s body. His spine crawls with the _wrongness_ of it.

It narrows its burning eyes at the force field, hissing when a touch to it sends up sparks. _“You’ve got new toys, I see.”_

“So it _is_ you,” Re’sl mutters. “Couldn’t you have died properly the first time around?”

Keith sends him an incredulous glance—is he seriously sassing the thing?—but it seems his tone doesn’t sit well with the Kxri. It snarls at him.

He rolls his eyes and signals for his soldiers, who close in as he moves to walk away. Each of their faces feign indifference; one even pretends to hide a yawn behind her weapon.

The insolence is apparently a weakness of the Kxri because it launches itself at the force field, shrieking.

This is phase two:

Distraction created, attention locked, Re’sl surreptitiously signals for the lone soldier, hiding near the alcove. She swiftly attaches a circular device to the forcefield, presses the muzzle of her weapon to the hole it creates in the field and shoots a dart into the side of the Kxri’s neck.

It screeches, twisting around, but a single step already has it stumbling. It crumples to the floor, glaring balefully at them. Within a heartbeat, Lance’s body has succumbed to the drug.

Phase three:

Wu’vur sends in a hoverbed, in the same way the soldier shot the Kxri, and remotely lifts the body onto the bed with the attached robotic arms. Useful, though it leaves Lance’s body carelessly draped. A forcefield zaps into being on the bed and they drop the one around the alcove. Immediately, fifteen psi-null blasters are aimed at the hoverbed as Wu’vur hastily steers it into the quarantine room.

Re’sl jumps down to the alcove, runs a scanner over the limp reptile in the corner. It buzzes. Dead and empty.

Two brave soldiers are waiting inside quarantine and with scary efficiency, they transfer Lance’s body over to the containment unit and strap him in. The transparent cover locks over him, and the whole thing glows blue. His readings pop up on Wu’vur’s station. The main screen shows his brain and the level of neurotransmitters the Kxri’s producing. It’s rising.

Phase four:

Flush the Kxri from Lance’s body.

Wu’vur activates the containment unit’s kill-switch.

They watch, tense, as the level of neurotransmitters stop multiplying.

And starts dying.

“Fuck,” Keith exhales. He slumps against the console. Re’sl claps his shoulder.

“That was stressful,” he begins.

Wu’vur’s voice cuts through the relief. “Wait.”

“What?”

“Look, production has stopped and most of the transmitters have been purged.” He points to the screen. “Except for this group here. They’re showing resistance.”

“Is the tech failing?” Keith demands.

“Not at all, everything is functional. In fact, the kill-switch is resoundingly successful.” Wu’vur flips a switch, turns a dial. “It looks like there might be something different about these transmitters.”

“Could they be leftovers from his first contact yesterday?” Re’sl suggests.

“Possibly. That would’ve allowed them the time to latch on tighter to his neurons.” Wu’vur worries his lip between his teeth. “Troublesome. This means I can’t turn up the intensity without harming him.”

“How likely is it that they’ll propagate and create transmitters with the same level of resistance?”

He hesitates. It’s all the answer they need.

Re’sl curses, pushing away from the station. He flips on his comms and speaks rapidly into it.

Keith stares at the readings. He looks through the window of the quarantine unit. Lance lies still, sweat beading at his hairline. His brows are furrowed.

“How stubborn would you say he is?” Wu’vur asks suddenly.

He sounds serious enough that Keith doesn’t snap at him for the odd question. “He hasn’t met anyone who’s made him back down from anything, yet, if that tells you anything.”

“Could he fight off a telepathic force ten times stronger at mental manipulation than him?”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that if his mind is strong enough, he can theoretically shake loose the Kxri—the transmitters’ hold on him—enough for the tech to purge it.” Wu’vur meets Keith’s gaze. “So, tell me. How stubborn is the paladin of the Blue Lion?”

A memory flashes in Keith’s mind. It almost makes him smile, in this grim situation. “Stubborn enough to refuse to help an entire planet because his friend was threatened by them.”

Wu’vur blinks, but otherwise looks unperturbed by the sudden revelation that Lance can be selectively ruthless. “If that’s the case, we might win still. Re’sl, you got all that?”

“I did,” Re’sl replies. “I’ve informed Her Majesty. She says we should give Lance some more time before making another move.”

“…There’s really nothing else we can do?” Keith asks.

Wu’vur shakes his head.

“It’s all up to Lance, now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know jackshit about brains i’m a fucking linguistics major don’t @ me i WILL cry and that is a threat


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> being mind controlled by a murderous alien is a lot like having depression and anxiety I find :/
> 
> this chapter might be upsetting. the kxri is a son of a bitch

_They are thirty million strong, made up of refugees and rebels and scattered remains of endangered races. They’re not much. They’re a speck; the Galra number in the billions, with five times the artillery and a ten-thousand-year head start._

_But they round themselves up, banding together with a grim sort of ferocity that surprises their enemy. They slice their way through the galaxies, dismantling the Galra’s footholds one by one, Voltron spearheading their efforts._

_And then on one uneventful day, they pick up a distress signal._

_Millions of lightyears away, someone is calling for help. Coran plots the origin point and maybe that’s the moment Lance begins to die._

_When they get to Earth, she is a corpse, drifting along. She is her own grave, her own deathbed. She looks like Daibazaal, whispers Allura. She is a smoking ruin, a travesty, she is not worth going planetside for, argues the rebellion, there is nothing left, says the Coalition, the council of world leaders, she is dead, say those with their still-living planets, still-breathing still-orbiting planets and their oceans and mountains and grasslands and deserts their homes still intact Lance wants to dig into Earth and die in her flesh like his brothers and sisters his mama his papa there is nothing left, he tells them, nothing left in me worth fighting for._

_The Earth spins in a black abyss, her last living moments gone unwitnessed and unhonoured._

In a place in between, a place neither here nor there, Lance is suffocating. Tides pull at him. An inky mass drips from his mouth, fills his nose and covers his eyes. The waters surround him, lapping at his fingers. He does not wake.

_Pidge goes missing first._

_They agree to let her look for her family on her own. She’ll be fine, she’s the most resourceful of them all. She’d be the only one of them besides Keith to survive a zombie apocalypse, Lance jokes. And off she goes, waving cheerfully. Just a hop around the local star systems, only a short trip, nothing dangerous._

_She’d just turned sixteen._

_She doesn’t get to see seventeen._

_Days and weeks and months go by, rushing past the day she promised to return by a margin so wide that Lance could never hope to breach it could never hope to travel the space within to get her back._

_They don’t figure out what happens to her until Haggar sends a robeast._

_Voltron cannot form, because they are missing Green, they are missing a little sister, they are staring her down across the battlefield because she is the heart of the robeast. Voltron cannot form, because whip-smart, mischievous Katie ‘Pidge’ Gunderson is morphed into the flesh of a monster and she is still alive. Her flesh is ripping and bleeding and healing every time the robeast moves and she is still alive but when they beg with her she does not respond._

_Voltron cannot form, because they lose Pidge a second time, for good, when they put her down._

_And without an arm to defend, it is so agonizingly easy to target the leg._

_Hunk dies because no one comes to save him. No one gets to. The Galra hound him on land, on a rescue mission turned trap, and they rip his bayard from his hand and his head from his shoulders and Lance still hears the choking noise he made over comms. They assassinate him, quick, brutal, efficient. Voltron never sees it coming, suffering from one grief, they’re too sluggish with remorse to react in time for the next._

_When Shiro becomes their third loss, it’s almost hilarious how much Lance is caught off-guard. That doesn’t make sense, he thinks. Shiro is our last line of defense, he’s the head. He’s the strongest. He’s the best, the brother, he’s the commander and he’s gone._

_Lance had half-expected to be the one to die next._

_But no, it’s Takashi. Takashi who’s been so quiet since he got two killed under his command, Takashi who spends his days locked in his room, Takashi Shirogane who cannot look Lance or Keith in the eyes._

_Shiro has always had a martyr complex. This time he succeeds in fulfilling it._

_He dies in pieces, he dies using his body to curl around an explosive that would’ve taken the lives of two siblings._

_Lance wonders if he thought of Hunk and Pidge before he died._

_After that, Lance is just waiting around. He resigns himself to the idea that the universe is hunting them. Who’ll be next? He passes time daydreaming about it._

_Unlike Shiro, this one he sees coming from miles away._

_Keith just leaves._

_Lance thought it’d be a toss up whether he’d off himself now that his brother’s gone, but it turns out he still wants to live. Just not with them. He cuts his losses, he goes off to find his mom, because she gave him an assassins’ knife for a token and that means she can probably be trusted not to die on him like the rest._

_Lance catches him sneaking away in a pod in the dead of night and doesn’t once wonder if he should stop him. When Keith flies out the docking bay, Lance just closes the doors behind him._

_There are five lions and only one paladin._

_Allura takes one look at him and decides they don’t need Voltron to win the war. They don’t have time to find four other paladins, thank you Lance, for everything, but you were never meant for this. She drops him off on Earth, right where Blue claimed him, and he crawls his way out and all the way to Keith’s shack._

_He slips into the cot Keith keeps in the bedroom, dirtied clothes and all, and maybe he’s been dead this whole time, because the Lance of two years ago would’ve cried at the sight of the patchwork quilt, the care obvious in the stitches the squares of fabric now faded by the sun Lance of two years ago wouldn’t even be here he’d have died out there with his family back to back he’d have saved them instead of wasting away in a threadbare bed a rotting house with only the dust and the ghosts of memories as his only company._

The black mass has enveloped Lance’s entire body. The water is repelled by it. A haunting laugh fills this space that doesn’t exist.

** _You are too fun, paladin, really._ **

** _I have not been so entertained in so long._ **

** _It is almost a shame that I have to destroy you._ **

From the blackness, a figure forms. It kneels above Lance and wraps its hands around his neck.

Outside in the real world, Lance’s body convulses. It’s only because of the restraints that he doesn’t slam right into the cover. Alarms blare. The containment unit glows red and on the screens, Lance’s brain is slowly being eaten by little spots of black again. Engineers are arguing, the makings of some device forming between them. The scientists are shouting out information as their screens light up with warning after warning.

Re’sl sends Keith an unreadable look. He raises his hand. His soldiers inch forward.

** _Let’s make this next one count._ **

** _Oh, that’s right, you have a soulmate, don’t you?_ **

_The quintessence doesn’t work. _

_Lance knows this because Allura, head bowed, comes out of the room and walks straight into Coran’s arms. She doesn’t make a sound._

_Shiro stares at her for a long, long while. And then his skin goes grey and his Galra hand clamps over his mouth so hard, Lance thinks he might break his jaw. _

_Nobody makes a sound. Everything is muted, all the white edges of the room are too sharp, and Lance hates hates hates how it already feels like a funeral. Because it’s not, it isn’t, it can’t be—this can’t be it._

_But Allura still hasn’t said a word, and that’s the Olkari head doctor walking out and he meets Shiro’s gaze and holds it, remorseful, until Shiro is the one to look away._

_The quintessence doesn’t work._

_Lance’s wrists burn. _

_When he looks down, the _who are you_, the _I love you_—they’ve faded. They’ve gone pale and thin like scars—like something to be healed from—barely visible under fresh black letters._

_Keith, rewritten._

_Lance punches the wall._

_The quintessence doesn’t work._

_Keith overdoses. He transforms, Galra genes distorting from the purity of the quintessence. His body can’t handle the stress—limbs growing out too long too fast; his spine bends, grotesque; his jaw splits under the force of his canines; skull and sternum cracking right down the middle, compensating for a bigger body mass—he dies too slowly, in agony, as they try to stop it. They try so hard._

_The quintessence doesn’t work._

_Keith can’t even beg them to end it._

_Shiro understands him anyway and asks Lance to forgive him._

_The quintessence doesn’t work._

_Keith bleeds out before they can try. He dies under that collapsed building, in a grave created by a monster, in a coffin made of metal and dust and Lance’s embrace. He chokes on his own blood, mouth pressed to Lance’s cheek. _

_Lance will remember the feel of it like a phantom limb, awake and asleep, for the rest of his life._

_The quintessence doesn’t work; they aren’t given that kind of time._

_The quintessence doesn’t work._

_Inexplicably, it does nothing. Keith floats in the vat, hair drifting in the liquid, eyes empty._

_It doesn’t work. It eats his skin. He dies screaming._

_It works too well. Keith fully transforms. He goes feral and they keep him for weeks and months and years, trying to fix it, and Lance doesn’t tell anyone that his soulmarks had faded when Keith opened his sickly golden eyes. He doesn’t tell them that the quintessence hadn’t worked. That whatever’s in the locked room, it’s not Keith._

_The quintessence is useless. It is useless and sickness and death and it never ever works, it does nothing and everything but never what they want because it kills even if it chooses to heal and Keith dies a hundred times, a million times, a hundred-million times, endless and relentless and—_

_The quintessence doesn’t save him._

_With his dying breath, Keith levels a finger at Lance and says:_

** _“This is your fault.”_ **

_This is…his fault?_

_Keith says…that it’s his fault…?_

Did I kill you?_ he asks._

_This Keith spits, **yes.**_

_And the knowledge comes, sudden, startling:_

_This Keith is not his._

_Lance blinks and the scene falls away._

_He hadn’t realized that they weren’t memories—all those times Keith died—until the real thing drifts up to his mind’s eye._

You are an idiot,_ the love of his life tells him. _

_He’s angry, but it’s miles from the rage fake-Keith threw at him. His soulmate loves him, even as he scolds him, pokes at his chest with narrowed indigo eyes, he’s so exasperated, so worried._

_This is a memory, this is real. This Keith is his._

_This Keith asks him, _

Are you just going to let it win, dumbass?

The ocean stills.

Its infinite tides ripple once and then smooth out. The surface goes perfectly flat, an impenetrable mirror. Silence reigns.

The misty figure pauses.

Beneath it, blue eyes snap open.

The space that doesn’t exist implodes. A supernova forms, a brilliant cerulean thing fifteen shades of impossible to the human eye. Lance is a sapphire flame and when he sits up, the shade trembles at his feet, boxed in by his mind.

You’re not mine, he says wonderingly, who are you?

**_I died because of you,_** it screams. The face it pulls over its own is a poor facsimile of Lance’s other half. **_You couldn’t do a damn thing!_**

He watches it thrash and claw and hammer at its cage. He asks himself how he could’ve thought it was anything like his soulmate.

It slams a hand against the invisible barrier. It shatters to pieces. The shade stands, black steam rising from its form. It bares its teeth at him.

Lance holds out his hand. A broadsword falls into it.

He regards it with faint surprise, curious, but decides that it’s not important right now.

He falls into ready stance and—huh, wasn’t that a bit too easy? Has he really been watching Keith that much?

When the shade lunges for him, he meets it head-on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I put the fckn altean broadsword in!!!! I figured I could pull the ‘as a sign of growth lance gets a sword’ and still do it better than vld bc I’ll actually give him character growth. And let him use the damn sword for more than half a second.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m on such a roll I think I’m high off validation. is that possible????

It’s just like Lance to wait until the last possible moment to turn the situation back around.

One second, his vitals are through the roof, body still spasming, and the next, he’s calmed down completely, the alarms cutting off with a ringing silence. Everyone pauses, off-kilter.

“What’s happening?” Re’sl demands. “Is he—?”

“He’s alive,” Wu’vur confirms. “It looks like…it looks like he’s _fighting back.”_

The room releases a collective sigh of relief; some even cheer. Re’sl signals for his soldiers to stand down. Keith sags against the side of the console and closes his eyes for a moment. Jesus Christ, Lance.

It’s not that he thought Lance would lose to that thing, but it was hell watching him seize on the table like that. He hates standing on the sidelines when he could be at Lance’s side, where he should be.

Through the quarantine window, Lance moves in his sleep, restless. His arm jerks up, held back by the restraints. Keith frowns and approaches the window.

There’s something strange about his movements. Familiar, almost. It’s difficult to make out, since the way he’s strapped down distorts most of it. The longer Keith watches, the more the dissonance grows. He feels like he should know what it is he’s looking at, but it won’t crystallize in his mind.

Lance’s right hand snaps open. His left closes around air.

It’s like he threw something up and then caught it with his other—

Keith’s lips part. _Oh._

_“You’re ambidextrous,” Lance says flatly. “Are you serious? Can’t you stop being cool for one goddamn minute?”_

_Keith flips the sword in his grip, tosses it to his other hand and twists his wrist, twirling the blade. Maybe he’s showing off a little, so what. Shiro isn’t around to make fun of him. “You are, too.”_

_“Yeah, with a gun.”_

_“I could teach you.”_

_Lance looks tempted, lip caught between his teeth. He doesn’t get up from his sprawl on the floor. “Nah, I’m good just watching you practice. I’m more of a gun guy anyway.”_

_Keith considers that, imagining Lance with his hands wrapped around Keith’s sword and—_

_He flushes—comes close to dropping his bayard and slicing his foot open. “Yeah, no, you’re right. Stick to guns.”_

_Lance looks like he doesn’t know if he should be offended by the agreement._

At his station, Wu’vur clicks his tongue. “The transmitters aren’t dying fast enough. Whatever the Kxri’s doing, it’s requiring twice the effort for Lance and the tech to eradicate it.”

In the unit, Lance tries to hunch in on himself, a half-aborted defensive movement. He’s panting hard, breath fogging up the glass. Pain flashes over his face.

“Tenacious piece of alien shit,” Re’sl swears for the first time. “Can we do anything?”

“Plug me in,” Keith murmurs.

“Without hurting him? No,” Wu’vur answers. “My team might be able to refine the headgear to allow for a greater energy input, but they’d need access to—”

Keith turns around. “Wu’vur, plug me in.”

His mouth snaps shut. He blinks. “Pardon?”

“You have the prototypes to Lance’s gear; you showed me yesterday. Suit me up and plug me into whatever’s going on in his head.”

Wu’vur shares a look with Re’sl. “It’d be too much of a risk—”

“Can you do it or not?”

He looks conflicted. At that moment, Lance lets out an audible cry. His hands tighten on the edges of the console. “I can…yes. Are you certain?”

“Lance is in there fighting for his life.” Keith rolls his shoulders and stretches out his neck. He meets their gaze, solid and unyielding.

When it comes to Lance, he’s always certain.

“Plug me in.”

He gets suited up in record time. The suit is a bit loose, but the headgear is functional, though Wu’vur still looks uneasy.

Keith walks in on his own, the quarantine door slamming shut behind him. On the other side of the window, Re’sl gives him a thumbs up. _“All good,”_ the comm in his ear reports. The unit clicks; Wu’vur’s unlatched the lock.

The cover of unit is heavy when Keith lifts it. Lance’s pinched face stares up at him. He slips a finger under the headgear and brushes a lock of hair back. Lance turns into his touch.

The hoverbed used to transport Lance was pushed to the side. Keith drags it over and pushes it up against the containment unit, snug. He locates the wires Wu’vur told him about and drapes them over the bed before clambering onto it himself.

With Wu’vur instructing him, he plugs his headgear in. Beside him, Lance inhales sharply. Time is running out.

He lies down facing Lance and from a pocket in his suit, he pulls out a syringe. Wu’vur counts down the seconds to activation and on _one_, Keith jams the needle in his neck.

Right as the darkness overtakes him, he reaches out and closes his hand around Lance’s.

He falls into the battle, into the crossfire, and instinct is what saves him. He has no bayard but his sword is suddenly there in his hands—or maybe it’s always been there—and he lashes out at that hateful presence hurtling at him.

Whatever he hits screeches, enraged, and Keith opens his eyes to see—well, he doesn’t know what it is, only that it’s hideous.

“You’re late.”

He huffs a laugh. “Got distracted by the fact that you were using a sword in your sleep.”

Lance steps up to the right of him. He twists his hand and a blue broadsword spins deftly in his grip.

Keith looks away, willing himself not to flush. Half of him desperately wishes Lance had stuck to guns. The other half is way too excited about this.

“It’s a new development,” Lance explains, unprompted. “Didn’t know I could do it. I think you rubbed off on me.”

Keith purses his lips. “I mean—”

_“Not like that.”_

The thing—must be the Kxri—hisses profanities at them. If it had a solid form, there’d be spittle flying from its lips. Keith peers closer. It’s small, incorporeal, and altogether not that intimidating. Wasn’t at all what he expected.

“I whittled it down some,” Lance answers. “The pieces you cut off will disintegrate.”

Keith frowns. “Okay—how are you doing that? I haven’t been saying anything.”

“I think I can hear your thoughts.” Lance tilts his head. “Can’t you hear mine?”

“Of course I can’t—” Keith stops.

Because now that Lance mentions it, Keith realizes he does. Like ambient music from another room, he hadn’t known it was there, gone undetected under his own roiling thoughts. Is this kind of like the deal with his sword? Is this part of the tech? The music feels like it’s always been there. Like Lance has always been there. He imagines opening a door and the music grows.

Then he wonders, what if there was no need for a door? What if it was just one big room that we share? He pictures it.

All at once, his world inverts.

Sensations meld into an eight-fold knot, a five-tiered braid. When he inhales, the stars shudder. He’s dying into another existence, he’s a lock clicking shut on a livewire. His nerves are the roots of a never-ending circle. He’s a self-sufficient circuit superimposed on another, the after-images of themselves sinking together, zipping closed on each other like genetic code, a tightrope soul. To his right—or is it to his left? Where is he standing? Is he standing at all?—there’s a gasp. He—Lance—Keith—someone laughs, delighted. _Oh_, they say—they _think_, because why bother speaking if you can read each other’s minds?—_Oh_, LanceKeiththey breathe,_ this is going to be _fun.

When the Kxri charges at them, they move as one.

Maybe there’s a little bit more of Lance in this body, a little more of Keith in the other body, but really, they’re two halves of the same whole and fighting like this comes easier than anything they’ve ever known, _will_ ever know.

Where one ducks, the other strikes. They’re two, wielding back-to-back—they’re one being, dual-wielding. They’re both, they’re neither, they’re something in between. LanceKeiththey crouch, they vault over the other, they parry and attack and cover and it’s double-vision it’s parallel thinking parallel existence this is them at their strongest their best this is them as—

Equals.

The-one-that-is-a-little-more-Lance loses his breath at that thought. An age-old wound heals over, a sigh escapes, contentment fills in hairline fractures and binds edges with soft, affectionate hands.

Equals; it tastes right on his tongue, tastes like whole, like forever.

The Kxri is a fragment of a shade now, is desperation incarnate. It’s losing and it knows it. It can’t deny death, standing over its shoulder. It’s sloppy.

It makes one last bid for victory, and it fails.

Lance goes low, Keith jumps high, their blades glinting like flashfire—they strike on the same beat. They land crouched, side-by-side, swords extended.

Behind them, the Kxri crumbles to ashes.

In this place that doesn’t exist, something like an ocean tries to form again. Something that’s not quite a desert flickers into being. Both are mirages. Is this mine or yours, they ask. Not sure, they say. Can we stay like this? The-one-that-is-a-little-more-Keith wants it. I don’t feel alone like this, he says. I think I’d miss loving you as me, A-little-more-Lance says, I’d miss you as you, and not as me-you-us. Oh, the other says, I think I’d miss that, too. I fell in love with you as you. This is nice, says blue to red, I like the purple, but I think I want you back.

The ocean tries to eat the desert, but deserts were oceans in the beginning, weren’t they? I don’t think we can stay like this, says Lance. And it’s a little sad, a little regretful, to have to separate, but we’re one in all the ways that matter, they say. And isn’t that enough?

Now Lance is Lance and Keith is Keith, and everything is just a little bit flatter like this, but it’s still the same. He’s still whole and Keith is still forever and isn’t it nicer like this? Isn’t it nicer to kiss someone and feel them smile against your lips, to have the warmth of their skin on you, so foreign but so familiar?

Don’t you agree?

_Yes, I do,_ says Lance.

_Yes, I do,_ says Keith.

The last of the Kxri’s presence leaves the paladins and Wu’vur is exhausted. Those were some of the longest, most harrowing moments of his life, right up there with the Kxri war.

All around him, his people are conversing quietly, equal parts relieved and astounded. Some have stepped up to the quarantine window, hands to their mouths, visibly moved.

Soulmates are rare, in recent Levertan society.

Not by design, but by circumstance. Marriages that exist these days are formed on grief, on the shared experience of loss first, love second. War takes many, and those left behind must find ways to make up for it.

Soulmates—linkpairs, as his people call them, are born with another voice in their head. Linkpairs have selective telepathy, a direct feed into the one who would be theirs, if they wished. It is faint at birth, but grows louder, clearer as they age and put effort into communicating. Linkpairs are confidants, friends, and are an individual’s strongest bond in this world. Your linkpair is your everything.

To have that connection defiled and torn asunder, moments before you die at the hands of a monster—tragedy does not even begin to encapsulate the horror of it.

Even now, years past, Wu’vur still catches himself wishing he’d died with his pair.

There is irony to it, that a race with such a gift would find themselves nearly extinct at the hands of an alien lifeform with a similar telepathy.

The paladins are human soulmates. He doesn’t know enough about their kind to say definitively that they have the ability to mind-link like his people do. But seeing them in action today, even if just through screens and lines of data, it is obvious that although they aren’t mind-linked in the Levertan way, they are close enough to it. And that is sacred. That is to be celebrated. His colleagues smile, grateful little expressions, because if some of them can’t have that connection, it’s still enough to see it reflected in others.

The universe was especially thoughtful when she created these two, when she took their hands and told them, this one is for you.

“How are their vitals?” Re’sl asks. He’s given up and dragged an empty gearbox over to sit on. His uniform jacket is tossed on the ground. “Please tell me there won’t be any more surprises today.”

“We’re in the clear. You can let Her Majesty know we’ll be moving ahead with the festival tomorrow, barring sudden health issues for the paladins.”

Re’sl closes his eyes, convening with his linkpair. “She expresses her relief and her thanks. She wants to be informed the second they wake up. She’s already sent for the doctors; they’ll be here soon.”

“Well then, I suppose everything is—” Wu’vur pauses. Pushes up his glasses and squints. “Oh. Hm. That’s unexpected.”

Re’sl jumps to his feet. “What? What is it? Are they dying?”

“Now that is quite marvelous,” Wu’vur mumbles.

“Marvelous?”

“I think we might be seeing something incredible, here.”

“Wu’vur, damn you, will you tell me what’s going on?”

He points to the screen. “We’ve cut the connection, but the paladins are still transmitting to each other.”

Re’sl frowns. “They’re a psi-null species, even with Keith being half-Galra. Neither of them possesses even a hint of telepathy, selective or otherwise.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. This section of the brain is clearly still active, despite the Kxri’s neurotransmitters having been eradicated. Not only that, but their psi-readings have overlapped; they’ve become impossible to distinguish.”

“What’s your assessment of this, then? Is it harmful to them?”

“If I were looking at a Levertan linkpair, I would say no. The readings are stable.” Wu’vur scratches his nose. “But they’re human, so this shouldn’t even be possible. I can’t say for sure what this means."

He looks through the window, where the paladins have curled into crescents facing each other. Their chests rise and fall evenly, their faces slack in sleep. Throughout the whole ordeal, their hands never once broke apart.

“We’ll just have to see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a motherfucking whore for partners in every sense of the word. I am a legitimate slut for two-sides-of-the-same-coin-they’re-fucking-EQUALS-THEY-BALANCE-EACH-OTHER-OUT TYPE OF SHIT!!!!1 CATCH ME SALIVATING OVER THAT KIND OF DYNAMIC!!! IT MAKES ME UNHINGED!!!
> 
> Anyway yeah that was the big climax. I bled over it I think I even gave away a good chunk of my lifespan to a fae to get this done. I love it but I also hate it. If I had to do that again I’d kill myself. I think I’ll probably end up doing it again. Inside me there are two wolves one is constantly spewing fic ideas the other is sobbing all over it trying to get the other to stop. this will never end. That’s writing culture.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when keith said ‘let’s elope’ in tnahp he didn’t quite mean it like this

Consciousness sneaks up on Lance like a particularly vengeful sibling.

It jumps on him like a million volts, a lightning strike. Everything is immediately _too much._ He didn’t know his _hair _could hurt like this. All twenty of his nail beds feel like they drowned in an acid bath. Breathing hurts—no, everything hurts, why are his senses dialed up to eleven thousand, someone turn it off, holy god, even his teeth are crying.

He opens his eyes, just to see if there’s something around him that he can use to end his misery. A morphine drip, a gun, he’s not picky.

The room he’s in is blessedly blanketed in shadow. Sunlight peeks from behind the cracks in the door far, far away from where he lies. He’s even got a gauzy curtain enclosed around his bed. There are nodes pressed to his bare arms, a couple on his face. The suit’s been switched out for a shirt and a pair of pants.

The suit.

His hands fly up to his head. The headgear is gone.

Did they do it? Does this mean they won? Probably, right? He’s alive, all limbs attached, and he’s not lying in a Levertan jail underground, so that _must_ mean they won.

A pained whimper reaches his ears. And at first, he thinks it’s from him, because wow, god, even thinking hurts, but then Keith says, “I _hate_ you, Shiro.”

Oh good, his soulmate’s alive.

He’d almost forgotten, but Keith had been there in the end, right? Pretty sure that wasn’t a hallucination.

“Hate your stupid skunk-looking ass,” Keith continues to grumble. “This is all your fault, stupid brother.”

Lance is really glad Keith’s alive. He loves him a lot. Wow. It almost eclipses the pain he feels right now. Should he try loving Keith harder? Would that work as, like, pseudo-morphine? Does that even make sense? He’s so desperate right now. His teeth are still crying.

Footsteps draw nearer. Keith’s mumbling grows; he yanks his pillow over his head. “Loud,” he complains.

“Oh good, you’re both awake,” says Wu’vur. “You’re in the medbay, with no major injuries except a headache and fatigue, though you probably knew that. You’ve only been out for a couple hours; it’s early evening, right now.”

“Did we win?”

“Yes, and let be the first to thank you for saving us.”

“Anytime,” replies Lance.

Wu’vur rubs his forehead. _Anytime,_ he mouths. “Right. Additionally, there’s been a complication, nothing damaging but I need you to listen very closely—”

Keith groans softly. “Lance, that’s very interesting, but can you please pause for second, the man is trying to tell us something.”

Lance turns to him. “Babe, what? I wasn’t even speaking.”

“Yeah, you were—something about how much your arm feels like it’s been chewed up by fifteen hippos and shitted out—”

“—and then been sewn back together with dental floss,” Lance finishes. “Red, that was _in my head.”_

Keith peels open his eyes. They stare at each other. “Like, internally?” he croaks.

“That’s what _in my head_ means, yeah.”

“Those were your thoughts.”

“They were my thoughts,” Lance confirms.

“I can hear your thoughts,” Keith says blankly.

“Yeah, I can hear yours, too,” replies Lance, to an unspoken question. “Stop—no, I don’t know how many teeth hippos have.”

Keith frowns.

Lance puts his hands over his face. “I can read your mind. Oh, shit. Oh, fuck, fuck _fuck_ what the _fuck?”_

Wu’vur sighs. “I was going to get to that.”

So, it turns out that the experimental telepathic tech the Levertans created had been originally used to assist in mind-linking soulmates.

Because Levertans find their soulmates with telepathy. And sometimes they need help bonding. Levertans have been telepathic this whole time and no one mentioned it. Lance seriously needs to have a talk with Coran about the mission briefs—whoever put them together was way too sloppy.

What this means for Keith and him, though, is that the tech altered their brains’ pathways. Just a little.

As far as he understands, it was supposed to be a temporary thing, to allow the tech to kill the Kxri using him as a medium, essentially. Except, they didn’t account for the Kxri’s resistance. And Keith jumping into the mix. And the fact that Lance’s mind and Keith’s mind would be _extremely compatible._

The whole mess made it way too easy for the tech to just…quietly join their mindspaces together. Like its primary function dictated. So, now they’ve essentially got a comm line into each other’s head for, like, the foreseeable future.

Considering the fact that the whole situation was a complete toss-up of unchecked variables, sudden complications, and improvised solutions…they were lucky they didn’t end up brain-dead.

Lance thinks he should feel some type of way about this new development, but he’s still running on Windows 2000 right now and it’s taking all his capacity just to process this.

Luckily, while they were unconscious, the Levertans made something to help them “turn off” the connection in their heads whenever it gets overwhelming. It’s an unobtrusive little thing, an ear cuff, really. All they need to do is press a button to stop the continuous stream of _god I hate shiro why the fuck did he get abducted this is all his fault this wouldn’t have happened if he’d just stayed on earth like adam said oh shit this was why adam managed their joint bank account wasn’t it shiro makes all the bad decisions oh my god he taught me how to drive a hoverbike off a cliff oh my god suddenly I understand why adam had so many white hairs fuck this is so embarrassing lance is going to know all about how much I think about his legs and his—_

Yeah, it’s going to take some time to get used to.

But all in all, the situation’s not that bad. Everyone’s alive, the festival is still going ahead, and Lance got the okay to participate in it. So what if Keith’s got a front seat to all his stupid thoughts now? It’s not like he’ll be surprised. Lance won’t be; he always knew there was nothing in Keith’s head but air.

_Shut the fuck up,_ Keith thinks at him.

_It worries me, how often you think about hippos._

Keith leans over the edge of his bed, picks up a hospital-issued slipper and throws it at Lance.

The Levertans also provide them with a data packet on mink-link visualization techniques. It’s a tried and true method, something they teach their kids from the moment they speak. Wu’vur walks them through it, explaining how to meditate every day, to imagine a door opening and closing in their mind.

“Eventually, this is supposed to let you filter out each other’s thoughts without the use of the telepathy blocker,” he says. “If you have any questions, you know how to contact us.”

They thank him, but he waves away their words. “Like I said, we should be thanking you two. Speaking of, the Queen’s outside, if you’re ready for visitors.”

When she sees them, Lu’hr breaks into the widest, most un-queenly smile yet. She rushes to their side, Re’sl and Ku’yr following a pace behind.

“You have,” she begins, black eyes shining, “my eternal gratitude for the selfless deed you have done for us. If there is _anything_ we can do to help you, in whatever capacity, please never hesitate to ask it of us.”

As always, when it comes to accomplishing something meaningful, something _good_, satisfaction blooms in Lance’s chest. He shares a grin with Keith. “We’re glad to help, Your Majesty.”

Then she says, “And please accept my congratulations on your marriage.”

Keith chokes. His side of the link gets _real _loud. Almost loud enough to drown out Lance’s own confusion.

After a moment, he raises his hand. “I’m sorry, I think I suffered from auditory hallucinations just now. Could you repeat that?”

She’s still smiling. “Congratulations on your marriage.”

He puts his hand down. He looks at Keith, who stares back.

In this moment, the only thought bouncing around like a ball in their collective mindspace is: _MARRIAGE???_

_MARRIAGE???_

_MARRIAGE???_

_ MARRIAGE??? _

_MARRIAGE???_

_MARRIAGE???_

_MARRIAGE???_

_ MARRIAGE???_

_ MARRIAGE???_

_MARRIAGE???_

** _…MARRIAGE???_ **

Wu’vur snaps his fingers. “Ah, I knew I forgot something.”

“For Sal’ra’s sake, can’t you do your job properly?” Re’sl sighs.

“Someone explain,” Keith demands, feral-eyed. “Explain, right now before I—before I do—_something.”_

Re’sl raises his hands, placating. “Easy. It’s not what you think. Lu’hr’s just being purposefully obtuse.” He shoots her a look; she just smiles wider. “As I understand it, when humans say ‘marriage’ it means something like a lawfully recognized bond between individuals that vow to stay together, yes?”

They nod.

“In our culture, that’s what you’ve entered into. Your link is identical to a fully-realized adult bond.” Re’sl looks between the two of them. “I understand that it’s not quite your idea of marriage, but as far as our people concerned, you’re as good as married. Which is why Lu’hr decided to congratulate you, confusing as that was.”

She covers her grin with a delicate hand. “They got so flustered; it was adorable.”

On their first meeting, Lance never would’ve thought she would be so cheeky for a monarch. He digs his fingers into his temple and squints at his white sheets. “Right. So, you…you married us?”

“You married yourselves, technically,” she corrects. “A mind-link that strong does not form unless you want it.”

_(Yes, I do.)_

The two paladins pointedly do not look at each other. Their mindspace is suspiciously quiet.

Ku’yr leans around Re’sl, an earnest look on her face. “Um, I’d also like to congratulate you, on behalf of all the Citadel staff. It’s an honor to see such a strong linkpair; I knew you both were something special!”

“How did they—” Re’sl narrows his eyes at Ku’yr. “I thought I said no information leaks.”

She squeaks, scuttling behind Lu’hr. “Her Majesty started it! When she heard the news, she was so pleased she announced it to the room! There isn’t a single person in the Citadel that doesn’t know now.”

_“Lu’hr.”_

The queen doesn’t look even the slightest bit repentant. “They don’t know anything about the circumstances, Re’sl. Only that we’ve had a wonderful union. Though, I supposed it is a bit of a problem; I’ve lost count of how many people have approached me, asking if we’re going to host a celebration for these two.”

Lance pales. Keith gives up and crawls under his covers, company be damned. “That’s _really_ not necessary. I don’t think we’ll have time, with the festival and with our, um—we still have to get back to Voltron soon. And! And we—I mean, I think we kind of need time? To get used to this whole, uh, telepathy thing, so…um.”

The four Levertans regard him with varying levels of amusement. They see right through him. Lu’hr decides to humor him anyway.

“I suppose it would be too much to ask you to entertain guests on top of everything else,” she muses. “Well then, we’ll move you back to your old quarters and make sure no one bothers you until the festival tomorrow morning. How does that sound?”

He smiles weakly. “Perfect. Thank you.”

From Keith’s side of the link: _Shit, are they expecting us to have honeymoon sex or something? _Then, _wait, Lance can hear me, now._

Keith starts radiating mortification so potent that it’s practically visible. Lance nearly bursts a blood vessel trying not to react.

Lu’hr looks like she knows exactly what just happened in their heads.

Another hour in the medbay and two restoratives laser, the two of them have made it back to their lavish quarters.

Lance jumps in the shower. It’s silly, but he still feels the Kxri hanging onto him. It’s only when the hot water sloughs over his shoulders that he relaxes.

The door clicks open and he freezes.

Keith steps through, gaze averted. His cheeks are dusted pink. Lance watches him, barely breathing, as he shucks off his hospital clothes.

Steam pours out when he opens the glass door. He peeks up at Lance through his hair. “…This okay?”

Lance wills himself not to get embarrassed. He reminds himself, _we’ve had sex, _and too late, remembers the mind-link.

Keith’s face flushes bright red, even as his eyes go dark. He shakes his head. _Not what I’m here for. Maybe later?_

Lance wordlessly slaps the shampoo bottle against his chest, flustered. _Dude. Seriously?_

His soulmate just smiles, pours the soap into his palms, and lathers up Lance’s hair.

Those gentle fingers massaging his scalp is enough to get him drowsy. By the time Keith’s applied conditioner and scrubbed his back clean, Lance is swaying on his feet. When it’s Keith’s turn, he leans against the wall and gestures for Keith to stand between his legs, too tired to stand properly. Keith does so, a fond quirk to his lips.

With his hands in that black hair, Lance thinks, not for the first time, that it’s entirely unfair how soft Keith’s mullet is.

_Back to that, are we?_

Lance scrubs harder. Amusement floats through the mind-link. It sends warmth down his spine; he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to that.

A thought drifts over from Keith’s side, timid. _About earlier, about what they said…you know I don’t mind it, right? Even if I stay open like this, to you, forever…I don’t mind it. _His face is pink again, when Lance cups his soapy hands to his cheeks to tilt his face up.

_You don’t think it’s a little…fast?_ Lance worries his lip between his teeth. _I mean—marriage?_

Keith scrunches his nose. _It’s not like it really counts, though? It’s only in their culture, right? When we do it our way, when we do it right—_

Slowly, like the sound of a song’s approaching chorus, images flash in Lance’s eyes—prompted by him or Keith or both—

_A beach somewhere in the galaxy, purple sands and warm weather. Barefoot, hands tangled together, heedless of the sweat. Laughter. Shiro and Hunk as their best men, Pidge as the reluctant flower girl. Coran officiating, unable to stop crying throughout the whole thing but they wouldn’t have it any other way. Allura is the ring bearer. The look on her face when she presents them with Olkari-made rings—she looks so proud, like _this_ is the reason she fights for them all._

_And maybe Lance’s family is there, too. Maybe a shadowy figure that may be Keith’s mom is standing with them. Pidge’s family, too, reunited. She joins them, punching Matt’s arm when he plucks teasingly at the flowers in her hair. Shiro and Hunk keep wiping at their eyes. They’re going to ruin their suits at this rate._

_When Keith and Lance kiss, when they seal their vows with a brush of their smiling lips, it’s under a strange sun, under the eyes of all they love, it’s under a sky of possibilities and peace._

_When they kiss, the universe sighs, satisfied._

Lance blinks.

Aloud, Keith continues, “We’ll make it count, when it comes to that.”

“When, huh?” Lance draws his thumb over Keith’s brow. A trail of bubbles follow. “Not if?”

Keith gives him a look then, like that’s a question not even worthy of answering. Lance still gets a _dumbass_ through the link.

“Close your eyes,” he instructs, tilting Keith’s head under the showerhead. He runs his hands through black hair until the soap’s all gone. The water drips off Keith’s lashes, catching the light.

Lance cradles his head and presses a kiss to his eyelid. To the other. To his forehead, and then his chin. His mouth.

“I don’t mind it, either,” he whispers. “The link, I mean. I like it.”

“I know. I can feel it.” Keith snickers when Lance skates his fingers over his side, a warning. “We done talking now?”

“You started it.” Lance noses at Keith’s neck. “But yeah, sure.”

Keith winds his arms around Lance’s shoulders and pulls him in.

“Good.”

(Later, freshly showered, _again_, Lance turns to Keith and says, way too gleefully: “Now this was a bonding moment to remember, am I right? Right? Get it, ‘cause we’re _mind bonded?_ Keith? Where are you going?”

“To see if Lu’hr can divorce us.”

“Babe, I was joking. Dude—dude, it was kind of funny! Red, come back! You don’t have clothes on!”)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, looking at the word count: this was supposed to be 5k. _this was supposed to be 5k._ _**this was supposed to be five fucking k.**_


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aw I’m kinda sad…this is the end babes…

The festival of Sal’ra, blessed water deity of the Levertans, is the most fun Lance has had in months.

He severely underestimates how many people turn up to watch him get dunked in the main square, but the food stalls and the activities and the parades and the _people_—it’s official. Levert is his favourite alien planet. Looking at them all, dancing and singing, you’d never think they suffered as much as they have.

He and Keith gorge themselves on exotic food, clapping along with the music and cheering for the performers that prance through the streets. Surprisingly, a lot of people recognize them, and throughout the day, they receive many, _many_ well-wishes and congratulations on their new bonding. Re’sl is beyond exasperated by the info leak. Lu’hr still refuses to apologize.

Then halfway into the celebration, the rest of Voltron arrives.

For a second, as the entire population of the city watches the castleship land, Keith and Lance are just excited to see their teammates.

It’s Keith who remembers the last missive they sent.

_Oh shit,_ he thinks, and within a second of the thought, Lance is swearing right along with him.

“Go, go, go,” he chants, pushing his soulmate through the throng. “We might be able to outrun—”

Allura’s disembodied voice cuts through the noise and bustle: “_People of Levert, we apologize for the interruption, but if you could all assist us in directing paladins Lance and Keith to the castleship, it would be greatly appreciated.”_

Fifteen thousand pairs of well-meaning eyes lock onto them.

Seated on the couch in the lounge, with the team spread around them, Lance thinks this is a lot like getting tried for first-degree murder.

Shiro stands with hands on his hips, eyes narrowed as he looks down his nose at them. If Lance squints, he can almost see the fires of hell behind him.

“I send you out on a fluff mission,” he begins, “and what do you do?”

Lance looks away, sweating. Keith juts his chin out, arms crossed.

_“What do you do?”_

“…We get in trouble,” they recite, Keith grudgingly.

“You get in trouble,” Shiro intones. “You get haunted by the ghost of a demon within two days of arriving. Then you decide to exorcise yourselves by using experimental brain-altering tech in order to fight the thing in your joint brain space. And then, because of all _that_, you got _mind-married.”_

“_Without_ inviting us,” Hunk and Coran add, affronted.

“Without inviting us,” Shiro repeats. He blinks. “Wait, not the point.”

“It kind of is the point,” says Hunk. “Lance promised I’d be best man!”

“There wasn’t really a wedding,” Lance begins.

Shiro turns on him, eyes blazing. “So you eloped with my little brother, did you?”

The blood in Lance’s veins actually freezes solid.

“Oh my god, Shiro, don’t,” Keith groans. “It wasn’t even his idea.”

Pidge gasps. “Are you saying _you_ proposed?!”

“Nobody proposed—” he pauses, frowning. “Why do you sound so surprised? I could propose if I wanted to.”

Lance puts his head in his hands. _Keith, are you serious._

_What? I could._

Pidge shrugs. “I don’t know, you don’t seem the type.” She’s egging him on, she’s absolutely egging him on, the little shit.

“Not the type?!” Keith shoots to his feet. “That’s it. Lance, stand up.”

Lance sinks deeper in despair and the couch cushions. _Dude, no._

_I need to show them._

_You really don’t. You don’t even have a ring._

“Shit,” Keith says aloud. “…Would you take an engagement knife?”

“Are you guys reading each other’s minds right now?” Shiro demands. “Right in front of me? While I’m lecturing you? Really?”

“Oh—for Altea’s sake, Shiro,” Allura complains, “why did you interrupt them? I thought I was finally going to see an Earth proposal.”

“They involve knives,” Coran whispers. “Write that down—knives. Very primal of them, very _passionate._”

Hunk and Pidge look at each other, then at Keith and Lance, and burst into ugly laughter. _Passionate,_ Hunk mouths, tears in his eyes.

Lance groans, done with it all. God, he can’t believe he envisioned inviting these evil people to his future wedding. He throws his hands up. “Alright, alright! We’re sorry for doing something dangerous without waiting for you guys, okay? Won’t happen again.”

Everyone—even Keith—gives him an incredulous look at that. The blatant doubt, wow.

“Okay, might happen again.” He puts on his best apologetic look. “Still sorry we worried you. Right, Keith?”

Keith grumbles an assent.

It’s Allura who caves first. She smiles and flicks them both gently on the forehead. “Forgiven. It’s only—when we got the message…it felt like—it just wasn’t a good reminder, is all.”

Fuck, they’re idiots. Right. The thing that happened, like, a week ago. Now he really feels bad.

“We should go down,” Keith says suddenly, as the mood begins to sour. He’s got a determined scowl on. “To the festival. It’s fun.”

“…Your words don’t match your face,” Pidge remarks. She turns to Coran. “But can we? It looks amazing from here.”

“It’d be a good way to unwind,” Hunk adds. “I know you three are especially worn out from dealing with negotiations.”

Shiro, Allura, and Coran mull this over. Allura points at Keith and Lance, “We’re going over the specifics of your mind-link after; your health is important, you can’t duck out. You will explain _everything_ to me. Understood?”

They snap out salutes that would make Iverson happy. “Yes, Princess!”

She nods. “Good. Alright then, let’s go have some fun. I think we deserve it, don’t you?”

They agree with a cheer and file out the door, chattering among themselves. What food to try, what games to play, what did you like most, Lance? The fruit stands? They have throwing games, like with balls?—knives?! Are you serious? I bet Keith liked that one. What else was there? Fighting rings?! Isn’t this rather violent for a celebration of a water deity? These kind of seem like your people, you two. Hey, can we meet whoever designed the planet shield? The array on that was just—

And so, it goes. The day passes on like that, a team of seven, laughing and shoving each other, sugar on their lips and sweat on their brows. Keith and Lance, hand in hand, leading the team into a day of fun, the sun sitting high in the sky and the sands shifting restlessly under their feet.

For those scant hours, nothing else exists, no war, no duty. Just happiness, just _living—_just Shiro, sticking out a foot to trip Hunk into the fountain; just Pidge, dragging Coran to a painting booth to draw on his face with green ink; just Allura, decimating the games and winning prizes for her paladins by the dozen.

Just Keith and Lance, pinkies linked, watching on as their family celebrates.

Watching and thinking:

_This, is what love looks like._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **ALL CAPS AND BOLDED BECAUSE I NEED YOU TO READ THIS AND KNOW THAT I LOVE YOU!!!! I ADORE YOU!!!**
> 
> THANK YOU FOR READING AND FOR ALL THE COMMENTS YOU LEFT ON TNAHP OR HERE. PLS KNOW THAT IF I DON’T RESPOND, IT DOESN’T MEAN I HAVEN'T READ IT AND APPRECIATED IT. I HAVE AND I DO, I JUST SUCK AT COMMUNICATING.
> 
> I wanna thank evy and annie esp, bc without annie, none of this would exist and without evy I wouldn’t have made it thru the sequel. Love u both <3
> 
> (to that one commenter who told me how tnahp inspired them to go for crwr in uni—I think about you often. I hope you’re well and doing what you love.)
> 
> For all of u who subbed, bookmarked, commented, shared with your friends and screamed about it online—even liveblogging your reading omg—it’s really helped me!! y’all make life a lot more brighter for me and u don’t know how grateful I am for that. im sorry that I stalk the tags but it’s like. Really the only way I get the good brain chemicals
> 
> I really did not think tnahp was gonna get as big as it did—it’s on the third page for the klance tag on ao3 sorted by kudos did u know?? I cry every time I rmbr that—and I’m honestly really amazed and happy that so many people vibed with it!! Just the fact that a couple thousand people were able to find some joy in my work is heartwarming, and I hope that will continue to be true, that you’ll be able to come back, time and time again, to find whatever contentment u can out of my work. That’s what it’s here for ♡
> 
> see you sweethearts next time!! ♡
> 
> [tumblr](https://hiuythn.tumblr.com/)   
[twitter](https://twitter.com/hiuythn)
> 
> (come by! say hi! ♡♡♡)


End file.
